Gallatin NF Responds to Judge Molloy

This week the Gallatin National Forest issued an interim summer travel management plan that protects more of the 155,000-acre Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo Horn wilderness study area (WSA). The new plan was necessary since Judge Molloy ruled last year that the agency’s travel plan violated the Montana Wilderness Study Act by designating trails for motorcycles and mountain bikes, and areas for snowmobile use in a manner that reduced the WSA’s wilderness character.   

The Forest Service previously addressed winter motorized travel last November; read more about it here.

With the new summer use interim plan, the Gallatin NF believes it has complied with Judge Molloy's decision; click here to see the press release that states:

In determining how to comply with the Court’s ruling to preserve wilderness character within the WSA, the Forest focused on providing non-motorized opportunities within the central portion of the area and concentrated use on trails near the WSA perimeter, closer to population enters of Big Sky and Bozeman.

While the Gallatin NF took these steps to comply with the ruling, it also appealed Judge Molloy's decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Recent articles about the interim plan focus more on lost opportunities than whether or not the plan actually protects the area’s wilderness character; an important omission given 60 miles of the Ramshorn Trail was left unprotected.

Of course the featured motorized activist decried the new protections, claiming it would crowd users together thereby increasing resource impacts and conflicts.

This is an old argument that for some reason seems to get significant traction in the media and other places. However it assumes a couple false premises, most notably that spreading motorized use over a large area will reduce the impacts. One would think this is counter-intuitive, since the result would be more areas damaged, not less.

Let’s face it, all recreation has impacts, but off-road vehicles cause the most because they can go further and faster than anything else out in the woods. The trick is to properly manage the damage by protecting ecologically important areas and allowing motorized use only on roads or trails that are designed to handle the impacts, and then only when there is enough money for maintenance. Therefore, the fewer roads and trails available the less damage overall and costs to maintain. While motorized use may increase on the open routes, the damage will be manageable.

As for conflicts with other users, when a trail is open to off-road vehicles, many times people will grudgingly accept this or go find a quiet trail; the trick is to make sure there is one available in the area; for the Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo Horn WSA, this just got easier.

Finally, on the issue of mountain bikes it is unfortunate that a representative from Montana Mountain Bike Alliance (MMBA) complained that environmental groups think mechanized and motorized impacts are all the same when this is certainly not the case. Such a statement is a distraction from the real issue, which was acknowledged by the same person when he explained how the law directs land managers to ensure the area’s wilderness character remains as it was in 1977, and the agency lacks data on use levels from that era.

Mountain bikes do not cause the same damage as off-road vehicles, and those I know who mountain bike want to enjoy a quiet trail as much as I do. So it is disheartening when I see a few of these folks using the same tired rhetoric and tactics as off-road vehicle activists instead of aligning with other quiet recreationists to protect more trails.

Luckily there are numerous pro-Wilderness mountain bikers who will work to protect more of our Roadless and other wilderness quality lands. See this link.