Jackson District, Shadow Mountain
Julia Blanco started as an BTNF-FBT Ambassador on Shadow Mountain in 2023 with her partner. The couple took 2024 off to get married. They were back at Shadow Mountain in 2025, and again in 2026. “Matt and I have traveled all over the U.S. and the Bridger-Teton is where we keep ending up,” Julia says. “There is something incredibly special about it.”
The couple finds the BTNF so special, that they stuck around last winter to volunteer for the Blackrock District. “At heart, we truly are nomads that love to travel and gain new experiences, however we’ve been on the BTNF for one year now and haven’t come close to running out of adventures,” Julia says.
Until this summer, Matt was a volunteer while also working remotely full-time. But, last year, Matt quit that job to pursue a career that more aligns with his values. (He has since been hired on by the BTNF itself.) Julia remains a BTNF-FBT volunteer, though.
“I wake up so excited everyday to rove the Shadow Mountain dispersed camping area and welcome new faces,” she says. “Sharing this place with people from all over the world and educating them on what makes this forest special has been the greatest privilege in both of our lives.”
The couple also educates Shadow Mountain campers on how to be a steward of the BTNF. “Whenever we’re out recreating ourselves on the BTNF, we focus on leaving the area better than we found it,” Julia says. “If they think this way, Shadow Mountain campers can be great stewards in a very heavily used area that is full of wildlife.”
Julia says that over last summer she watched a mother mule deer raise two fawns. During a rainy week in July, a moose hunkered down in the aspen trees next to their camper.
“Even though Shadow Mountain is outside the invisible boundaries of Grand Teton National Park, wildlife thrives here, and that brings a tangible wholeness that you can physically feel,” Julia says. “The forest is alive. The lack of infrastructure, light pollution, and dense human population brings with it a sense of peace I have never felt before.”
“The health of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is directly tied to the stewardship and protection of the BTNF, and if we can have any part in doing so, we are fulfilled,” Julia says. “We acknowledge the many indigenous peoples who stewarded this land for tens of thousands of years before us.”
Fun Fact: Although all of their BTNF friends encouraged Julia and Matt to get married at The Wedding Tree, an intimate spot with spectacular views of the Tetons, “we have too big of a family for that to have worked,” they say. Instead, they got married—barefoot in the grass under the trees—on 300 acres of conservation land close to where they lived in New Hampshire.