Montana Vet Program

Montana Vet Program Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Montana Vet Program, Nonprofit Organization, P. O. Box 1072, Great Falls, MT.

The mission of the Montana Vet Program (MVP) is to provide Veteran Led Therapeutic Adventure Trips (VLTAT) to our country's struggling veterans in order to promote healing through: camaraderie, physical activity, adventure and tough-minded healing.

06/23/2026

7054 dog tags of from the men and women who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These dog tags have been down the river more than anyone on our team. We have this walking memorial to remind us of their sacrifice and our reason to live our life to the fullest!

Last morning on the Smith looks a little different than the rest. Morning routine. Then cold water immersion — the river...
06/21/2026

Last morning on the Smith looks a little different than the rest.

Morning routine. Then cold water immersion — the river is 48 degrees. Most people get in anyway.

Then venison on skewers over the fire. Bearded Butchers seasoning. Canyon wall at your back. Wet hair starting to dry.

Before we pushed off we topped off the brush barrier we started on VLTAT 26-1. Two trips, same stretch of river, same mission.

That's what it looks like when you actually take care of the land you use.

Then 13 miles out.

VLTAT 26-2 is done. The Smith River gave us four days and it didn't hold back once.

Neither did they.

Day 3 is always the longest day. 17 miles of river this time.It starts the same way every day starts — morning routine, ...
06/20/2026

Day 3 is always the longest day. 17 miles of river this time.

It starts the same way every day starts — morning routine, then breakfast. Angry Pika, BRCC Kalispell coffee, Jocko protein shakes, GO energy, and protein cookies. Breakfast on the Smith hits different when someone else cooked it and the canyon wall is your dining room.

Then 17 miles. That's the day veterans learn to row. You hand someone the oars for the first time and watch them figure out that the river doesn't care how strong you are — it cares whether you're paying attention. Most of them are good at it faster than they expect.

Halfway through, rain. We threw up tarps, ate lunch, ran a class in the middle of a Montana rainstorm, and kept moving.

Fish were caught. Relationships were built. By the time we got to camp it was spaghetti and homemade sourdough around the fire. The kind of day that's hard to explain to someone who wasn't there.

27 miles. Worth every one.

Day 2 on the Smith started the same way day 2 always starts — morning routine, then to work.That before and after is one...
06/19/2026

Day 2 on the Smith started the same way day 2 always starts — morning routine, then to work.

That before and after is one campsite. Dead trees cleared, widow makers down, brush hauled and stacked. The kind of work that doesn't make the highlight reel until you see what was there before.

Then back on the water. The canyon doesn't get old. Neither does watching someone float through it for the first time and go quiet.

Rain moved in by afternoon. We didn't stop. When it was finally time for our last class of the day we moved it inside the wall tents — field manuals open, everyone in chairs, Smith River just outside the door.

The couple roasting hot dogs over the fire in the rain didn't seem to mind any of it.

Neither did we.

VLTAT 26-2 launched on the Smith River last week. This one was different. For the first time in MVP’s history we had cou...
06/16/2026

VLTAT 26-2 launched on the Smith River last week. This one was different. For the first time in MVP’s history we had couples on the water together — spouses floating side by side, working side by side, sitting around the fire together at the end of the day.

The program doesn’t require both partners to be veterans for our spouse trips. It just so happened that on this trip they were.

Day one looked like every day one looks. Push off the bank, find your rhythm on the water, fish when you can, work when you have to. The STIHL came out at the first campsite. Brush cleared, logs cut and stacked, camp built from the ground up.

There’s something that happens when you put two people who’ve served — who’ve carried the same weight in different ways — into this environment together. The river doesn’t care about rank or branch or what year you got out. It just moves. And eventually, so do you. 15 veterans. 59.1 miles. One new chapter for this program.

06/15/2026

Sneak peek from VLTAT 26-2

We will be out of the office until Sunday. VLTAT 26-2 starts today.
06/12/2026

We will be out of the office until Sunday. VLTAT 26-2 starts today.

06/09/2026

What you’re watching is a FWP raft we call Big Bird making one of three trips across the Smith River hauling brush to a campsite that couldn’t source its own. Rattlesnake Bend sits at mile 47 of the 59.1-mile float.

No road access.

No equipment.

No brush to harvest.

The brush barriers we build require material that has to come from somewhere — so we loaded it onto rafts at Givens Gulch and ferried it across the river by hand, trip after trip, until the job was done. If you catch the glimpse at the very beginning of the blue raft heading back upstream, that’s the second crew doing the same thing. The stakes being unloaded launched at Camp Baker at mile 0. They floated 47 miles on those rafts before they ever hit the ground.

Brush barriers aren’t decorative. They direct foot traffic to where Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has determined people should walk and let the bank recover everywhere else. Human erosion is still erosion. On a river that sees thousands of visitors every year and has no road access for heavy equipment, this is how the work gets done.

MVP has partnered with FWP and the U.S. Forest Service on the Smith River since 2019. Our veteran volunteers have contributed $123,297 in conservation labor to this corridor. Three trips across the river in a yellow raft is just one afternoon of that number.

This is what it looks like from above.

The science isn’t new. Veterans just haven’t always had access to it in a way that doesn’t feel like a waiting room. We ...
06/08/2026

The science isn’t new. Veterans just haven’t always had access to it in a way that doesn’t feel like a waiting room. We put it in the wilderness instead. Link in bio to learn more about our programs.

Have you picked up your copy yet?
06/05/2026

Have you picked up your copy yet?

Address

P. O. Box 1072
Great Falls, MT
59403

Telephone

+14068687850

Website

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