Springtime is a season of growth around these parts. And not just for the Balsamroot beginning to bloom on south-facing slopes around the ecosystem, or for the new fawns just starting to stretch their wobbly legs from the safety of a low, leafy canopy, but for the ABWF team as well.

Joining our year-round ranks is Maddison Wilhite of Billings, who will lead our education and outreach programs and bring critical wilderness education and a steadfast stewardship ethic to communities around the AB. This work directly complements the on-the-ground stewardship work overseen by the incomparable Jarret Kostrba, our Red Lodge-based stewardship manager.

We also recently welcomed two seasonal field crew leaders to our team (Finn joins us for a second season, and Katie joins for her first), as well as three stellar new trail interns. The crew leaders will spend the summer guiding groups of volunteers into the backcountry to tackle a wide range of trail maintenance and stewardship projects, and the interns will spend the season embedded with Forest Service crews. They will all come out of the other side of summer with new stories, hardened calluses, and another season of backcountry experience under their belts, having carried on the proud tradition of hands-on wilderness stewardship for another year.

At the helm of it all is Joe Josephson, our Big Timber-born and mountain-tested executive director. It’s a robust team ready to take on the challenge—and privilege—of caring for a place like the AB: vast, wild, storied, and utterly irreplaceable.