u/Brief_Criticism_492

Hey all! I’m going to be in bozeman for a summer internship. I’ve always wanted to come, mostly for the recreation opportunities and overall location! I know there’s a bus in town, but was wondering how doable local recreation is with just the public transit (or if a car/friend with car is pretty necessary).

I currently don’t have a car that can make the drive out, but may invest in a new one for that sake if flying out doesn’t make sense recreationally lol

Main (summer) activities are hiking, trail running, and climbing, though I’m generally up for anything! PS are there good climbing gyms in town? Looks like maybe the mountain project has some good training?

Thanks for any intel, I am super excited to be out there in a few weeks!

During the summers, I work a pretty chill front desk job. I pretty much just sell people stuff occasionally, do a quick clean of the facility once/hr or so, and otherwise just hang out at the desk. I've gotten pretty efficient with the "real work" that I do (ie cleaning and retail), so I typically end up with a few hours worth of "free time" while on shift. I've used this time in very different ways over the years, and am looking to try something new this summer.

A bit about my hobbies: I love to climb, hike, ski, cave, and most other "outdoorsy" activities. I enjoy mentally stimulating activities (lots of puzzle games and such), reading, etc. I'm a math/cs major in school, and sometimes have hobby projects within those realms. I also just love to learn new stuff, whether academic or practical

Things I've done in the past:
- I've read a lot of mostly fiction books
- I've learned a lot about climbing anchors, knots, and general rope work stuff
- I read hundreds of caving accident stories
- I've scrolled google earth for dozens of hours looking for random stuff to explore
- my current plan is to read through a WFA course since I don't know much about that stuff

Things that don't work well:
- anything that I can't immediately drop/pick back up in an instant (can't predict when people need to buy something, and need to immediately be available and ready to help. Sometimes I end up busy for 30 seconds, other times it'll be an hour before I get back to "downtime")
- anything that takes too much focus/attention (I need to notice when people come up to the desk)
- anything that will feel particularly unprofessional. The customers understand my position and don't tend to mind my "time fillers", but if I'm on my laptop gaming, that gives off a very different vibe compared to if I'm reading.
- I'd prefer to not need to buy stuff, so while I'd love to learn to knit or something similar, now isn't the right time for me.

Let me know if you have any ideas for what I should pick up! Down for random mini-skills that don't require many materials or just learning about some topic that's new to me.