The skyscraping peaks of southwest Montana are big. Isolation and loneliness can feel even bigger. An old rail line is bringing new hope for social connection.

By Lisa W. Foderaro 
Published December 12, 2025 

Aerial view overlooking the Yellowstone River, Interstate 90 and mountainous terrain south of Livingston, Montana.

In Montana, TPL is beginning work on the Yellowstone Heritage Trail. It will run 56 miles from Livingston to the Roosevelt Arch in Gardiner, which marks the northern entrance to Yellowstone. The vision calls for a paved multiuse path—accessible to everyone—that will follow an old rail bed. The former Burlington Northern Railroad Company had operated a line there that connected to other rail lines that ferried tourists to Yellowstone, the nation’s first national park, from Chicago, St. Paul, and other cities. The line was abandoned in the early 1980s.

The first 3-mile segment will take shape not at either terminus but roughly in the middle of the future trail, in Emigrant, an unincorporated community of 387. It’s located in Paradise Valley, which, as its name suggests, is awash in scenic beauty, with the Gallatin mountain range to the west, the dramatic Absaroka Mountains to the east, and the Yellowstone River carving through the middle.

Many people—especially long-distance visitors with plenty of time—head to the rugged trails and byways of the national parks. But locals who seek less aggressive recreation closer to their homes and workplaces in the valley struggle to find it. That’s especially true for families pushing strollers, young kids on bikes, or people with mobility challenges.

“Any rail-trail conversion has less than a 5 percent slope, so it is easily accessible for old and young, wheelchairs and strollers,” says Lucas Cain, a senior project manager for TPL’s Northern Rockies program. “To the side of the paved path will be gravel to accommodate runners and horses. We’re in the midst of engineering and working through the design now.”

The trail is included in Rails to Trails Conservancy’s vision for a 3,700-mile Great American Rail-Trail. The Yellowstone segment will encourage exercise and enhance the connection to outdoor areas surrounding towns like Livingston and Emigrant, which aren’t always easily accessible. Numerous studies show that time spent in nature can relieve anxiety and depression. That’s important in a place like Montana, which as David Weinstein, TPL’s Northern Rockies program director, points out, has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. “The sparse population can result in social isolation,” says Weinstein, “and the landscape, the local economy, and weather are challenging.”

Sarah Karls, a licensed clinical professional counselor in Livingston, which is located in Park County, has worked with at-risk youth in both Georgia and Montana. “You learn from working in those settings that wilderness is a healer,” she says. “In today’s society, so many of us have lost touch with that. Having outdoor recreation that is accessible to everyone would be huge for our county.”

Karls points out that Montana consistently ranks in the top three states for suicide, along with Alaska and Wyoming. And Park County, where the trail will be built, has one of the highest suicide rates in Montana. “The commonalities are long winters, short amounts of daylight, lack of resources, guns, and alcohol,” she says of the three states. “The list goes on. There is also research showing how wind can affect depression. Livingston is the windiest town in Montana.”

Chantelle Plauché, a licensed clinical social worker and chief executive officer of a mental health agency in Livingston, says suicides in Park County are at crisis levels. “We have had repeated suicides every year, just in Livingston, including in the middle school,” she says. Plauché is also the founder of a nonprofit that works with schools on suicide prevention and grief response.

She believes a rail trail would provide an easy, affordable way for residents to exercise. “Regular physical activity is proven to help reduce symptoms of depression,” she says. “But not everyone can afford a gym or to travel. Having trails close to where people live—it’s low cost, it’s accessible, and both youth and adults can do it. And they are getting outdoors. With the weather here in Montana, we have a lack of vitamin D nine months of the year, which contributes to depression.”

Finally, Plauché says a local trail has the potential to help residents form friendships. “It gets them to connect with others,” she says, “and social connections are another protective factor for suicide and mental health.”

The abandoned rail line cuts a path through Emigrant, Montana. Encountering it today—against a backdrop of modern housing developments popping up throughout Paradise Valley—feels like stumbling on an impossibly old artifact of human life in this rural pocket of Big Sky Country.

And yet, centuries and millennia before the railroad and white settlers were here, Indigenous people and animals traveled this same route. Remnants of an old “drive line”—an Indigenous hunting innovation that funneled bison into manmade rock structures toward a cliff edge or “buffalo jump,” and their demise—are still visible. To be sure, the Yellowstone Trail will also lend itself to cultural and historical interpretation. Some of the earliest human remains in the Americas are found in the region, and members of the Blackfeet, Crow, and Salish Nations, among others, consider the area home. Also unearthed in the Yellowstone vicinity: Clovis points, distinctive spearheads used by the Clovis culture 11,500 years ago, possibly to hunt large mammals like the extinct woolly mammoth.

Cain says the nature of a linear trail provides access to sites that hosted many different activities over the decades, centuries, and millennia. “It offers a glimpse into so many things—Indigenous history, agricultural and mining, the earliest days of tourism,” he says.

The combination of culture, history, and outdoor recreation will no doubt boost economic activity in southern Montana. According to some estimates, in Montana alone, the Great American Rail-Trail is projected to increase visitor spending by $16 million, create 200 jobs, and generate $7 million in income.

Kristen Galbraith, director of Park County Grants and Special Projects, is working closely with TPL on the first 3-mile leg of the trail, which will run next to Highway 89. “Before it was ever a roadway, the area was used by people on horseback,” she says. “This is a great opportunity to visit between Livingston and Yellowstone National Park. It’s a beautiful valley when you’re not in your car.”