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5-Day Beartooth Wilderness 2026 Horse-Packing Trip (TRADE) (Jardine)
condition:
new
make / manufacturer:
Specimen Creek Outfitters
model name / number:
Wilderness Horse-Packing Trip
size / dimensions:
5 days / 4 nights
QR Code Link to This Post
This is a "conservation trade-up challenge" that has grown in value from a $36 book to a $5,000 horse-packing trip through six trades. Our goal is to keep making trades until we have sufficient value to buy land for a public campsite along the Jefferson River Canoe Trail.
We now own rights to a horse-packing trip with Ralph Johnson of Specimen Creek Outfitters, based in Jardine. Explore the mountains, swim in pristine lakes, and enjoy backcountry camping in a stunning setting!
What do you have to trade for this adventure that would give you memories to last a lifetime while helping to advance our conservation goal?
Here are additional details, as reported in Lewis and Clark Trail News:
Thomas J. Elpel, president of the Jefferson River Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Alliance initiated a "conservation trade-up challenge" with the goal of trading a book for land for a campsite for the public along the Jefferson River Canoe Trail.
"I heard about a guy who traded up a red paperclip for a house and a woman who traded up a bobby pin for a house, and I wondered if a trade-up challenge might be a good way to acquire land for a campsite," Elpel said.
Chapter members previously raised funds and purchased three properties for public campsites. "Fundraising for conservation work is a challenge in the best of times," Elpel said, "and we've seen riverfront property values double, triple, and quadruple over the last few years, nearly pricing us out of the market."
As an author, Elpel thought it seemed logical to initiate the trade-up challenge with a book, offering Five Months on the Missouri River, his Lewis and Clark-themed travelogue about paddling a dugout canoe from Montana to St. Louis with five men and a dog. Elpel won the Writer's Digest 2020 First Place Award for Nonfiction for the book.
Elpel launched the trade-up challenge in 2022, trading the $36 book for a $460 Women Rising Wild retreat with wolves in Colorado. He then traded that retreat for a $1,150 Coming Home retreat in Oregon and later traded that retreat for a $1,750 five-night AirBnB stay at Sage Mountain Center near Whitehall, Montana. The AirBnB stay was traded for a handcrafted cedar strip canoe valued at $2,500, which was traded for a whole processed Angus beef valued at $4,000.
“Each trade has given a significant jump in value,” Elpel said, “yet, it takes some effort to find each new trade partner.”
In the most recent trade, Elpel swapped the whole beef for a wilderness pack trip with Ralph Johnson of Specimen Creek Outfitters in Jardine, Montana, valued at $5,000. He is now looking to trade the pack trip for something of even greater value. He is donating a signed copy of his book with every trade.
"I don't know how long this will take," Elpel said, "but I hope to trade up towards something valuable enough to trade or sell for land for a public campsite." Elpel hopes the trade-up challenge will become a viable new tool for conservation work.
"Deep-pocketed donors are few and far between", Elpel said, "but everyone has something to trade. Small trades can lead to big trades, and every swap supports the final goal of conserving land."
Properties purchased by the Jefferson River Chapter are protected from development and open to the public for fishing access, mushroom hunting, bird-watching, and overnight camping for paddlers. "Many people just like to walk their dog along the river," Elpel said.
For more information, visit the Trade-up Challenge at Elpel.info and the Jefferson River Chapter at JeffersonRiver.org.