Montana Veterans Walk As Team Toward Healing PTSD

Montana veterans find healing through nature, camaraderie
Great Falls Tribune
Jenn Rowell
July 1, 2016

"It’s the weight that they feel. Not one person can hike that the entire way, we have to do it as a team.”
Luke Urick

Pills and counseling don’t work for all veterans coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

That’s why Luke Urick and Scott Moss wanted to create a third leg to what they call the tripod of healing.

Veterans with the Montana Vet Program, part of Eagle Mount Great Falls, hiked from Livingston to Yellowstone National Park in May to raise awareness of the program.

(Photo: Photo courtesy of Amber Fern)

The two combat veterans, who were Marine Corps snipers, have created the Montana Vet Program at Eagle Mount Great Falls. MVP for short, the program involves veteran-led therapeutic hikes through Montana’s iconic locations, including Yellowstone and Glacier national parks and the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.

MVP is a culmination of ideas that Moss and Urick had been kicking around and started coming together when Deb Sivumaki, director at Eagle Mount Great Falls, talked to Urick about creating a program for veterans.

Moss hiked in Yosemite National Park with a good friend and a fellow service member, who was killed about a year and a half later in 2009. Moss left the Marine Corps in 2011 and was living and working but wanted to do something.
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