Grinnell Glacier Trail
A demanding Many Glacier hike climbs past lakes and waterfalls to a turquoise basin beneath the Garden Wall and the visibly diminished Grinnell Glacier.
Montana, United States: places and wildlife — page 4
Browse the published Explore collection for Montana, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Avalanche Lake Trail
A popular west-side hike crosses the accessible Trail of the Cedars, climbs through moist old growth, and ends beneath a cirque streaked with waterfalls.
Jewel Basin Hiking Area
A hiking-only mountain area holds dozens of lakes, ridges, and interconnected routes above the Flathead Valley, reached by a rough road to Camp Misery.
Ousel Falls Trail
A well-built Big Sky trail descends through forest and along the South Fork to overlooks around Ousel Falls.
Palisade Falls Trail
A short paved trail in Hyalite Canyon climbs to a waterfall spilling over a dark wall of volcanic rock.
Tizer Botanic Gardens & Arboretum
Montana’s only full-time botanical garden layers shade, roses, herbs, vegetables, native plants, a nursery, and intimate paths along a cold mountain creek.
State of Montana Arboretum
More than two thousand labeled trees and shrubs turn the University of Montana campus into a dispersed living collection rather than a fenced garden.
Garden of One Thousand Buddhas
One thousand Buddha figures and one thousand stupas form a Dharma-wheel garden within the homeland of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
ZooMontana
A seventy-acre zoological and botanical park emphasizes animals adapted to northern climates within wooded trails and naturalistic habitats.
Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center
A nonprofit wildlife park provides close observation of bears, wolves, otters, raptors, and other non-releasable animals while interpreting coexistence around Yellowstone.
Missoula Butterfly House and Insectarium
A tropical butterfly house and insectarium pair close observation of life cycles with Montana-focused education about invertebrates and conservation.
Montana Arctic Grayling
Montana’s last native river-dwelling Arctic Grayling population turns a brilliantly patterned dorsal fin into a lesson about cold water, connectivity, and patient restoration.
Meltwater Lednian Stonefly
A tiny stonefly living in Glacier’s coldest headwater streams makes melting ice and rising water temperature measurable as habitat, not abstraction.
Western Glacier Stonefly
Known only from the Glacier–Waterton high country, this cold-water specialist survives where ice, snow, springs, and shaded alpine channels hold summer temperatures down.
Bitterroot
Montana’s state flower hides a surprising strategy: succulent leaves gather early moisture, disappear, and leave luminous pink blossoms seemingly resting on bare stony ground.
Sapphire Rockcress
A Montana-only rockcress survives in scattered dry mountain openings where pale flowers and narrow fruits demand closer study than a showy wildflower display.
Missoula Phlox
Found nowhere beyond Missoula County, this compact phlox survives city-edge winds, shallow soils, recreation, and invasive plants in cushions only inches high.
Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout
Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout connect lake, river, tributary, bear, bird, and human food webs.
Wyoming Indian Paintbrush
The brilliant color belongs mostly to bracts, while the true flowers are smaller and tucked among them.
Western Redcedar
Western Redcedar is a very large conifer with fibrous reddish bark, drooping leader, and flattened sprays of scale leaves and is most meaningfully sought in moist forests, river terraces, wetlands, and shaded slopes across the Pacific Northwest.
Common Loon
Minnesota’s state bird is a superb underwater hunter whose haunting calls carry across northern lakes—but whose nest can fail after one careless wake.
Walleye
Minnesota’s state fish is a low-light predator whose famous eyes, seasonal movements, and lake-by-lake management make it more interesting than a dinner plate.
Black-eyed Susan
Rough-haired stems and golden rays around a raised brown center make Maryland’s state flower a familiar open-ground wildflower.
Brook Trout
Follow this jewel-colored char from shaded headwaters to Adirondack ponds, where water quality shapes its future.
Common Snapping Turtle
A rugged freshwater turtle is easiest to notice when it leaves the water to nest, not while it lies hidden below.
Nine-spotted Lady Beetle
New York's state insect once seemed ordinary; finding its precise pattern now demands care and a little luck.