KALISPELL — The Bob Marshall Wilderness does not maintain itself. That's why the community is coming together to help keep its trails open and its wilderness wild through Bobfest.
They call it "The Bob," more than one million acres of wilderness in the heart of Western Montana. But keeping it wild requires work, the kind the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation calls active stewardship, and that work never stops.
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"Active stewardship is everything from going out there and helping to clear and maintain trails, mitigate invasive weeds in addition to a lot of education efforts that we do," Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation Board Chair Caleb Stewart said.
That stewardship costs money, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation depends on the generosity of its neighbors to make it happen.
Bobfest is the foundation's biggest fundraiser of the year. It brings the community together through silent auctions, food and drink, and activities for families.
"Bobfest is incredibly important for us because a lot of what we do relies on donations and support from our local community so every dollar here at Bobfest goes directly into active stewardship in the Bob that we all love," Stewart said.
Tiffany Counts knows what's at stake. The Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation named her Volunteer of the Year, but she didn't start volunteering for a title. Counts says shrinking budgets for public land maintenance made her want to step up.
"I know how hard it is to maintain trails with funding and those types of things being cut. So I decided it was something I wanted to do to give back to help keep access to the wilderness so that I could enjoy it as well as everybody else," Counts said.
For Counts, Bobfest isn't just a party — it's a promise. A promise that the places that matter to this community will still be there for the next generation.
"The Bob is important to me because it's a wilderness and it's one of those pristine areas that we're losing. We lose so much of this everyday that just being able to help it stay a wilderness, stay accessible, to me it's just so important to maintain that," Counts said.
Although Bobfest has wrapped up, there are still ways to support the Bob Marshall Wilderness. To learn more, click here.
