The Bozeman Daily Bee

Outdoors

Mountain Conditions Remain Deadly Despite Pleasant Valley Afternoon

By Chuck Troutman January 28, 2026

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks issued a winter safety advisory Tuesday reminding residents that backcountry conditions remain “extremely hazardous” across the state’s mountain ranges, even as valley temperatures hovered in the low 40s and several downtown Bozeman residents were spotted without jackets.

“People see 42 degrees in town and assume the mountains got the memo,” said game warden Russell Haines, who has responded to four backcountry incidents since New Year’s. “The mountains did not get the memo. The mountains don’t check their email.”

Montana Photographers Now Required to Prove Elk Is Real

By Dr. Theodore Hypothesis January 27, 2026

A growing crisis in the Montana outdoor photography community has reached what experts are calling “an epistemological tipping point,” as artificial intelligence image generators become sophisticated enough to produce fake elk photos that are, by all measurable standards, indistinguishable from actual elk.

“We are now living in a post-elk-verification society,” said Dr. Randall Furman, associate professor of Visual Ecology at Montana State University, during a Thursday lecture attended by 11 people and one student who was clearly asleep. “If you cannot prove the elk is real, the elk may as well not exist. This is Descartes’ nightmare.”