Archery season opens in three weeks and the Bridger foothills are already blinking with infrared. Dale Pressler of Belgrade checked his camera on Sypes Canyon last Sunday and found three hundred forty-seven photos. Two were cow elk. The rest were a golden retriever, a trail runner in a bucket hat, and the same guy eating a Clif Bar forty-two times.

Pressler shrugged. “Costs me twelve bucks in lithium batteries every season. This year I’m mostly documenting hydration habits.” He scrolled past a blurry mountain biker, a family of four interpreting a trail map, and someone doing yoga on a boulder at 6:14 a.m.

Jenna Kotschevar, visiting from Missoula for the weekend, triggered five cameras on the M Trail before noon. “I thought the flash was lightning,” she said. “Then I realized it was pointed at my water bottle. Felt like paparazzi.”

The cameras sit on game trails that doubled as hiking trails sometime around 2018. Nobody formally agreed to this arrangement. The elk adapted by moving higher. The hunters adapted by checking SD cards at the Co-op parking lot. The hikers adapted by waving.

Ranger Mick Stolz at the Forest Service office on Huffine Lane says the overlap is normal. “August is the only month everybody wants the same dirt. Come September they sort themselves out.” He tapped a stack of incident reports. Mostly lost dogs. One stolen trail camera that turned up on Facebook Marketplace three days later.

Pressler swapped his card and hiked down. The bucket hat runner jogged past going the other direction. They nodded. The camera caught it all.