Ascending Together: Public Action for High-Elevation Forests

Title: Ascending Together: Public Action for High-Elevation Forests
Date: Tuesday October 7th, 2025
Time: 7-9pm, doors open at 6:30pm. post-event mingling 9-9:30pm
Location: Inspiration Hall, Norm Asbjornson Hall, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT (parking available in garage at corner of S. 7th and Grant)
Refreshments: Light snacks & cash bar (non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages)

Please join us for an engaging evening of storytelling about mountain adventures and connection about ways we can all get involved in high-elevation forest conservation

“We all started out high-country addicts, skiers and mountaineers and alpine wanderers, and the whitebark pine was always our tree, the wind-trained, bottle-brush-shaped icon, the toughest most noble inhabitant of the highest and the wildest places.” -Hal Herring, Harvesting whitebark pine cones to save a forest

Event Panelists

Hal Herring is a contributing editor at Field And Stream magazine and the host of the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers’ Podcast. He has covered conservation and public lands issues across the West for many publications for over three decades. He is currently at work on a book about the American public lands for Patagonia publishing. For most of his life he has been a forestry contractor as well as a writer, and worked from 2009-2020 on the US Forest Service’s whitebarks program, climbing, caging and harvesting cones from the Wind Rivers to northern Montana.

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Hilary Eisen grew up in Billings where she spent countless hours poking around on the Rims and gazing at the Beartooths. Her interest in the outdoors led to a B.A. in biology and environmental studies from Middlebury College and a M.S. in wildlife biology from the University of Montana. Hilary’s career in public lands began while working on Forest Service trail crews throughout Montana during and after college. Eventually she traded the crosscut saw for a computer and discovered her inner policy nerd. Hilary brings many years of experience to Wild Montana, having worked on federal public land management and policy for regional and national conservation organizations since 2008. She lives in Bozeman and spends much of her time finding adventure on public lands throughout Montana and beyond.

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Vasu Sojitra is a professional skier and a Disability Access Strategist living in Bozeman, MT. He has climbed peaks like the Grand Teton and was the first Disabled person to ski peaks in Montana’s Beartooth and Bridger Mountains with monumental ski descents on Tahoma (Mt Rainer) and Denali all on one leg and without a prosthetic leg. Through his goals and ambitions, he hopes to create more accessible spaces for people with disabilities and people of color in the outdoors and the ski world with the motto of “#ninjasticking through the woods to center intersectionality in the outdoors.”

 

 

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Joe Josephson joined the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness Foundation as executive director in 2023 after many years of leadership in both the conservation field and the outdoor industry. Born in Big Timber, Montana, along the Yellowstone River, Joe has long considered “the AB” the backdrop of his personal and professional life. He spent his early years with the US Forest Service in the Big Timber and Gardiner ranger districts before being called away by an opportunity to conduct research on a high-elevation glacier in Canada. Subsequent career high points included founding the non-profit organization Friends of Hyalite, expanding pronghorn habitat in Paradise Valley, leading campaigns to stop two destructive gold mines on the border of Yellowstone National Park, and writing and publishing more than two dozen outdoor books, guides, and maps. Joe spends as much time as possible in the realm of the whitebark often visiting favorite groves as the destination.

 

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