About Us

Backcountry Squatters is a club at Montana State University devoted to encouraging and fostering an outdoor community for women. We want girls to feel empowered through their experiences in the wilderness and the skills they acquire, as well as get a sense of their place and being. Too often is outdoor adventuring viewed only as the realm of man - and we reject that myth. Although this stereotype has been challenged for decades by scores of amazing women, there is still a gap in professional and media representation as well as awareness. This is a place for rad ladies to get together, learn from each other, share in experiences, and maybe even teach the boys a thing or two.

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Peeing in the Woods

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From the Backcountry Squatters Story Night: by Mary Burr I’m a girl and as a girl I was not born with external plumbing. So here’s a tribute to ladies peeing in the woods… A central part of being outside and adventuring is peeing in the woods. The problem is learning how, exactly, to execute this task.  You have to find your perfect squat, you have to pull your pants down, and, before you do any of this, you have to find an optimal pee spot…. It can be a tough science. It’s definitely a learning curve. And it was a very long time before I perfected this great wilderness art.  I’m sure many of us ladies can remember figuring out how to pee in the woods… My journey was a little bit longer than most. I remember my mom taking me off the trail and demonstrating the squat…. And me trying to mimic it, quite unsuccessfully, peeing all over my pants and bursting into tears. I kept on trying to perfect it when I was little–maybe 6 or so and every s...
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Elevations and Depressions

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From the Backcountry Squatters Story Night: by Abby Westling I always wanted to climb Rainier. From across the Puget Sound I admired her and her prominence from the rest of the Washington landscape. So naturally, when I decided that I wanted to end my life, it became an objective that I wanted to accomplish, for myself, before I was gone. See, I had come up with this idea that I was a burden more than anything to everyone in my life—that I was not worthy of life and that I was a waste of resources and energy. It’s easy to convince yourself that this is true when you constantly tell yourself that you are not good enough. So when I decided to finally put into action a plan to climb Rainier, I was setting my expiration date. Of course there’s a lot that had to go into this plan. I had never climbed a mountain before. I wasn’t in mountain climbing shape and wasn’t sure what over 14,000 feet would feel like since I had lived at sea level my whole life. I didn’t know anything abo...
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Badassery, Butterflies, and Brooke.

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From the Backcountry Squatters Story Night: by Noelle Coniglio My close friend Brooke was the first person to call me a badass and at the time, I did not deserve the title. To paint the picture of adolescent me, I was tall and chubby with braces, glasses, and a scoliosis backbrace. Needless to say, I was a vision. Besides being a physical specimen, I was more bookworm than mountain goat and so my outdoor endeavors were far from falling under classification as badassery.             Regardless, Brooke gave me the title after a conversation that went something like:             Me: “Yesterday, my family and I hiked up Arctic Valley and when we got to the top, we just kept going. Someday, I want to put on a backpack and hike and never stop.”             Brooke: “Wow, you’re such a badass.”    ...
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