I hiked the M Trail on Tuesday morning, as I do every Tuesday to calibrate my internal pace for the week. About halfway up, I encountered a group of three gentlemen wearing very expensive, brand-new hiking boots that still possessed that telltale, factory-fresh sheen. They were playing a mix of 1990s hip-hop quite loudly from a plastic carabiner-clip speaker.

I stopped and waited for them to pass, smiling in that polite way we do when we want someone to understand they are violating the unspoken social contract of the Gallatin Valley. They didn’t turn it down. In fact, one of them asked if I knew where the “summit” was, which I found curious, as the M is quite clearly visible from every street corner in the city limits.

We move to the mountains to hear the wind in the pines and the rhythmic crunch of our own boots on the scree. If I wanted to listen to a curated playlist of upbeat dance tracks, I would simply visit the lobby of a North 19th Avenue hotel. Bringing a speaker onto a public trail is essentially a form of acoustic littering. It suggests that the environment we have so carefully curated is not quite interesting enough on its own.

Local resident Bill Hatcher, who was also on the trail, noted that he didn’t mind the music as much as the fact that the group was walking four-abreast, effectively blocking the entire path. “I just figured they were trying to drown out the sound of their own heavy breathing,” he told me.

While I appreciate that these visitors are enjoying our backyard, there is a certain dignity in silence that seems to be slipping away. If you must listen to your music, I kindly suggest doing so in the privacy of your own living room or, perhaps, while driving your lifted truck toward Four Corners. The mountain already has a soundtrack, and it doesn’t need a bass boost.

Tammy Switchback moved to Bozeman in 2019, which she considers early enough to have opinions. She hikes recreationally and judges others for how they do it.