AREDN tunnel

There is not a gatekeeper per se. It is really a matter of coordinating with another node owner to create a tunnel. 

Since you are located in Montana, you might look for something in Idaho. I seem to remember that there was some work being done in southern Idaho, but I don't have any contacts or a reference to what club was doing the work. 

Have you checked the arednmesh.org site's map? There looks like there was a recent node that came up in Coeur d'Alene recently. Maybe there is something new going on in northern Idaho. 

73
Gerard, WT0F