Somewhere near Lima, Montana, about two and a half hours southwest of Helena, Keenan Charlton found himself alone on a dirt road with a storm closing in behind him.

He and his friend Micah were bikepacking the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR), which runs from Banff, Alberta, to the U.S.-Mexico border. That day, the route led them through an exposed stretch of terrain near Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, with no tree coverage beyond a little sagebrush.

The wind shifted direction, rain began to fall, and thunder cracked overhead. Then came the pebble-size hail. Having decided to ride separately that day, Micah was somewhere behind him.

Eventually, Keenan reached camp soaked, cold, and worried. A stranger offered to help search for Micah if he didn’t make it in by dark, and later helped them find a hose to wash the mud from their bikes after Micah safely arrived. It was a small act of kindness that Keenan would encounter again and again along the route.

As they returned to camp to settle in for the evening, the scene transformed. The moon rose over the lake, and the wetlands came alive with a natural lullaby.

“Going to bed that night was the most amazing experience, just hearing all the birds and frogs,” Keenan remembers.

That contrast, from fear and cold to beauty and relief, stayed with him. “Being put through that, you appreciate everything on the other side,” Keenan says.

He’s talking about the storm. But he could just as easily be talking about his life.

In many ways, that day encapsulates the way Keenan chooses to move through the world: his willingness to ride the edge of his own limits, his belief in the goodness of people, and his instinct to look for meaning in whatever waits on the other side.

Before discovering mountain biking, Keenan had been playing football, partly because his dad and grandfather had both played in college. But the sport never felt like his. Football felt rigid and aggressive, while biking felt relaxed and open.

“Biking is more like a competition against yourself,” Keenan says.

At first, Keenan was drawn to downhill-style mountain biking. After breaking a few too many helmets and getting more concussions than he probably should have, his relationship with the sport began to shift.

As he got older, biking became less about speed and more about exploration of self and the outdoors.

His coworker Dillon, at Great Divide Cyclery’s mechanic shop, The Garage, introduced him and the crew to gravel riding and bikepacking. That opened up a more immersive way to ride, not just for a few hours on a trail, but for days at a time through the wilderness.

On one early bikepacking trip, Keenan and his friends rode directly from their doorsteps in town, up Rimini Road, connected into the surrounding Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest, camped, and returned home.

To Keenan, the appeal of these overnight trips lies in the unknown of being exposed to the elements, carrying only what fits on a bike, and seeing what happens.

“It’s kind of spooky, but I think that’s part of the fun,” Keenan says. “You are putting yourself out there and very vulnerable.”

Long-distance riding became a test not only of physical limits but also of mental fortitude.

“You have to be brave enough to put yourself out in hard situations where it’s really hard to find positivity,” he says, “and dig deep and still find it.”

Photography and spirituality, like biking, offer Keenan a way to find meaning in the world.

Like many influences in his life, photography began with family. His grandfather, Travis, was a photographer who worked for the State of Montana, doing aerial work and capturing official portraits of the governor. Keenan grew up aware of that part of his family history, and as a teenager, a high school teacher introduced him to film.

He went on to study photography at Montana State University, spending hours developing prints in the darkroom. He became especially drawn to gum bichromate, an alternative printing process that is hands-on, tactile, and analog.

Just like long-distance biking, the process asks him to slow down. It is deliberate, imperfect, and intentional, which is exactly why he loves it. There is also something deeply fulfilling for Keenan in holding the finished print in his hands, a feeling a digital-only photo cannot quite replicate.

“I ended up spending a lot of time in the darkroom, just having a blast,” he says.

At the same time, Keenan was also studying religion. A Buddhist traditions class opened something in him, and he continued taking religious studies courses until he earned a minor.

For his senior thesis, he was asked to create a project that represented the culmination of his education. Keenan brought his two areas of study together through a photo connected to a childhood memory of his Papa Mike sitting beneath a tree in his bright orange hunting jacket.

To Keenan, the image called to mind that of a Buddhist monk in a saffron-orange robe, meditating beneath a Bodhi tree. It brought together two worlds that might seem unrelated at first glance: Montana hunting culture and Eastern spirituality.

Keenan’s creative work often explores consciousness and ideas that appear separate on the surface. Beneath those contrasts, his art points toward a deeper idea that everything is connected, and each of us is a small part of something larger.

Photography, spirituality, and biking are not separate threads in Keenan’s life. They are different ways of asking similar questions, slowing down enough to notice what is there, and finding meaning in what appears.