Climate change is affecting Montana’s outdoor industry and people who work closely with river guides said professionals are absorbing environmental changes in real time.
Hilary Hutcheson, an environmental advocate and river guide for Glacier Raft Company, said the emotional toll can be easy for others to miss when they see guides in their usual element.
“They get to be outside. They are super funny and witty and have all these adventure stories and can do backflips off the rocks,” Hutcheson said. “And they don't really think about all of those super challenges that go with being this really rad person on the river.”
The struggle is sometimes called ecological grief, or eco-grief. Hutcheson pointed out services are available for guides who need support. Pursuit, which owns Glacier Raft Company and Glacier Anglers, offers eight free counseling sessions, she added.
Hutcheson noted the company also works with the Redside Foundation, a nonprofit serving the outdoor guiding community in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. The group offers a confidential helpline and financial coaching.
Finances are another pressure point for people employed in the outdoor industry, Hutcheson explained. She cited ski area employees whose mountains closed a month early, if they opened at all, this past winter because of a lack of snow.
“It's really stressful to be a guide these days in the ski industry or in the outdoor industry in general, certainly as a river guide,” Hutcheson observed. “A lot of that has to do with these changing conditions and the transitions seasonally that are more variable than they've ever been.”
Hutcheson acknowledged the role of river guides is also changing. When she started guiding in the 1990s, she did not expect to be talking about climate-related issues more each year. Now, it is a normal part of the job.
“We're having to look at how to diversify, how to try to talk to our guests about expectations, how to talk to our elected leadership about trying to maintain winter and trying to protect those high snowpacks,” Hutcheson underscored.
Hutcheson testified at a congressional committee hearing in 2024, asking lawmakers to take decisive action on climate change.