Recently the Montana Natural History Center identified a group of people new to the floods that wanted to do “something” outdoors, but not too early, or too long, or too strenuous, or too late. So IAFI’s Glacial Lake Missoula Chapter worked with the Center to put together a 4 hour, middle of the day field trip.  We saved money by using the History Center short bus and our History Center liaison as our driver. Bring your own lunch and water, dress for short hikes and variable weather.

The short bus limited us to twelve plus a speaker. We went for $60 per person, $40 for IAFI members, students and Natural History Center members. The trip sold out instantly as soon as we started to publicize. Chapter president Jim Shelden said, “I was surprised that much of the interest was from members that had done 1 or more trips before. The rest was from other newbies. Clearly we want to do more of this.”

On trip day a reporter from the local KPAX-TV news popped in and wanted to come along, but he had to follow the bus because we were out of room. A member of The History Center board of directors also wanted to come along, so since we had no seat for him and he wanted to talk more with the reporter, he rode with the reporter. The reporter also needed to be back in town by one PM to edit and get the  video ready, so we ran the trip in reverse order to get the summation speech in for our new guests to make the deadline. Then we proceeded to the other sites to show the other participants all the evidence. 

The day was beautiful with lunch by the river and the reviews were very good. The station got good feedback, the board member was pleased talking to the participants, and we will make the station aware of all our events in the future.