From the Flathead Beacon
In Kootenai Forest, a Test Case for Mountain Bike Access
Mountain bikers are worried over new Forest Service plans in Montana that could restrict the sport they love, in places they treasure.
By Daniel Testa, 9-21-09
A proposed travel and recreation plan for a section of the Kootenai National Forest has some mountain bikers in northwest Montana concerned that they could lose access to trails they have ridden for years. And though any new restrictions on trail access for cyclists are far from finalized, the case demonstrates how mountain biking, a relatively new sport when compared to uses like horseback riding or snowmobiling, can prove difficult for federal land managers to categorize.
The area in question is known as the Galton Project, a section of the Fortine Ranger District stretching from U.S. Highway 93 to the edge of the Kootenai Forest south of Dickey Lake. The Galton Project encompasses the Ten Lakes Wilderness Study Area (WSA), which was established in 1977. After a 2007 lawsuit settlement with the Montana Wilderness Association, the U.S. Forest Service is moving more quickly to establish travel plans for the Ten Lakes WSA.
But when a proposed action plan for the Galton Project was released in June, mountain bikers in northwest Montana did not like the restrictions it included on cyclists. Out of the roughly 176 miles of single-track trails affected by the plan, 37 miles would allow for mountain biking. According to Pete Costain, president of Flathead Fat Tires, a local mountain biking advocacy group, closing trails to bikes in WSAs is fairly standard, but the Galton Project would close many trails that are outside the Ten Lakes area to cyclists.
“It’s going to, I think, unfairly restrict quite a bit of mountain biking that’s been ride-able basically forever,” Costain said. “It’s a really odd proposal that the Forest Service came up with.”
He also called it a “slap in the face” for mountain bikers that the Galton plan proposes allowing snowmobiles in some parts of the Ten Lakes WSA.
“I have a really hard time with an agency, that’s willing to give carte blanche to snowmobiling, putting restrictions on bikes,” Costain added.
Just north of Fortine, Todd Tanner offers lodging at his Grave Creek Cabins. He is also in the process of launching a mountain bike guiding business, and envisions offering multi-day, ultra-light “bike-packing” trips into the backcountry. But Tanner believes the proposed restrictions on mountain biking in the Galton Project could effectively prevent him from getting his guiding business off the ground.
“The proposed Galton Project, the way it is now, would completely shut me down,” Tanner said. “I was shocked at what was in the proposal.”
Though both Tanner and Costain have objections to some of the proposals in the Galton Project, neither thinks it’s due to any conscious discrimination against mountain bikers by the Forest Service. Rather, as travel plans are drawn up around Montana, no real precedent exists for fitting mountain bicycling into the “multiple use” mix.
Betty Holder, district ranger at the Murphy Lake station, said she was surprised by the number of letters she received from mountain bikers during the public comment period for the Galton Project, which wrapped up Aug. 31. In determining a travel plan for the Ten Lakes area, the Forest Service generally tries to determine what uses the area was allowing in 1977, when the law set up the WSA designation. Snowmobiles were allowed at that time in Ten Lakes, but mountain biking didn’t exist in northwest Montana at that time, so she is trying to determine where motorized dirt bikes were allowed.
“If there were trails open to motorcycles, then a similar number of trails would be open to mountain bikes,” Holder said. But with little documentation of the allowed uses in these areas, she has gone so far as to try to interview the district ranger during the 1970s to see if he can fill her in on what was allowed during that period.
“We don’t have great records back from 1977,” Holder said. “It’s very difficult to determine where certain uses were allowed.”
Holder hopes to have a draft environmental impact statement issued by this spring, and said she is open to changes, alternatives and compromises based on the feedback she has received – the majority of which has come from the mountain biking community so far.
“This was the first proposal and we’re looking for these comments back from the public on how they would do it differently and why,” Holder said. “If there are particular trails or areas that are of interest to folks then we are interested in hearing that.”
How mountain bikers fit into travel plans on federal lands is an issue likely to be cropping up all over the state, particularly in the wake of the Forest Jobs bill by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., which seeks to establish new Wilderness areas in Montana.
Bob Allen, co-president of the Montana Mountain Bike Alliance, said his group is attempting to provide a consistent voice for mountain bikers in the state, one that is willing to work on a “trail-by-trail” basis with federal agencies in specific areas to preserve certain rides. But like any other multiple use group, mountain bikers are not going to willingly relinquish access to treasured trails.
“It’s not 1977 anymore and we have a huge conservation-based, very active constituency in this state in the form of mountain bikers,” Allen said. “Asking for a few of these trails here and there for bicyclists in Montana is not an unreachable stretch.”
[End of article]Interesting article. Wild public lands are coming under new pressures and the U S Forest Service is unsure of how to manage new uses such as mountain biking.
The Galton Project encompasses something like 120,000 acres of Kootenai National Forest -- which includes the 34,000-acre Ten Lakes Wilderness Study Area designated by law in 1977.
The Forest Service must follow the law--in this case the 1977 Montana Wilderness study act -which directs the ranger to maintain the historic wilderness character and potential as it existed in 1977.
Conservationists have worked for many years to protect quiet trails and wild country throughout the Whitefish Range. Instead of staking out the little old 10 lakes WSA -- a conversation about wild lands conservation should cover the entire range of opportunities in these vast mountains.
The Kootenai is among the least protected national forests in Montana -- only 5% is in wilderness. Wilderness and wild country is a precious resource that merits all our support especially mountain bikers. In other parts of state notably Butte and Helena --mountain bikers and bike clubs are working closely with back country horsemen hikers hunters and other conservationists to help conserve Montana 's wild heritage.
See "Continental Collaboration" --http://www.helenair.com/lifestyles/recreation/article_94afc46c-ee60-5d93-9983-77762f8e30c5.html
The Whitefish Range is really the landscape that should be considered -- Flathead and Kootenai conservation leaders have invested decades to keep it wild. Flathead Back Country Horsmen have maintained trails for at least 25 years. It would be awesome to see northwest Montana quiet cyclists engage anmd work cooperatively with conservation and quiet trail advocates.
For the wilds of Montana
John Gatchell
Conservation Director
Montana Wilderness Association
Tel: (406) 443-7350, ext. 106
Montana High Divide Trails is the nation’s largest conservation agreement between mountain bikers, backcountry horsemen and women, hikers, and conservationists.
Yeah John we will work with you until you stab us in the back again.
MWA speaks with forked tongue.
As always, each group screams if new rules effect them. Bike riders are now finding out what is and has happened to wheel recreation.
Horses will be next as they dig up trails like all the rest
That's what I worry about David. They kick horses out they better close it to all entry. even hikers. Never known a horse to throw a match or candy wrapper. Make them barefoot if you must but horses should be allowed anywhere they can get.
Comment By fenske, 9-22-09Yep, the leaders of MWA want us all to argue and fight each other.
Mode of recreation should be based on suitability and resource damage. There are thousands of miles of trail in Montana that I won't ever even consider taking my bike on. This includes existing Wilderness areas and areas that I would be allowed on a bike but a bicycle is the wrong mode of travel,(too rough, too steep, etc).
I don't have any issues with motorized 2 wheel recreation, I don't have any problems with horses.
As long as the motorized users are responsible and don't root things and the Horse people stay home when the trails are wet then I will do my part as well.
I am an IMBA member and I support their outreach to motorized recreation voices.
It is all of our lands.
John Gatchell (Montana Wilderness Association): I appreciate your comment and perspective here regarding the importance of Wilderness Study Areas on the Kootenai National Forest and your statement that "wild country is a precious resource that merits all our support."
However, don't you find it rather ironic that when it comes to your closed-door, exclusive, self-selective "Beaverhead Partnership" proposal (which now forms the meat of Sen Tester's Logging Bill) you ended up releasing numerous Wilderness Study Areas that were set aside by Montana Senator Metcalf after years of hard work by Montanans?
And isn't it ironic that now you and your organization are participating in a heavily funded media campaign trumpeting the timber industry's rhetoric about "healthy forests" and supporting logging in Inventoried Roadless Areas on the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest?
How do you rectify these very real contradictions in your own mind? Thanks.