Tag Archives: Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project

Bike deal adds heartache, hope to wilderness proposal

April 25, 2017Environmental Issues, NewsBlackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project, Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, Smoke Elsernfpa

Grizzly Basin - added to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area under the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act - Zack Porter photo — Grizzly Basin – added to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area under the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act – Zack Porter photo

The Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project is back in play in the U.S. Senate, but getting to that point was not at all an easy or comfortable task . . .

Smoke Elser agreed to share his favorite place in the world with his least-favorite pastime, and it nearly broke his heart.

“I will support what we’ve done,” Elser said. “I’m the only one who voted against it. But everyone else agreed. And I want Grizzly Basin. I want that Monture drainage. So I had to compromise. But I’m not going to compromise anymore.”

What the dean of Montana’s horse-packing heritage did was concede to a deal that unified an unprecedented coalition of supporters around an expansion of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex. In return for endorsing full federal protection of 80,000 acres, the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) and two Montana mountain biking groups laid claim to about 3,800 acres for future cycling trails. That’s next to a proposed 2,200-acre recreation management area designated for snowmobile use.

Tester announces legislation to expand Bob Marshall Wilderness

February 23, 2017Environmental Issues, NewsBlackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act, Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project, Bob Marshall Wilderness Complexnfpa

All that work by the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project over the past decade is finally paying off . . .

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester on Wednesday announced legislation that would add 79,000 acres of public land to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex while expanding access to snowmobilers and mountain bikers and boosting forest restoration projects with timber harvest.

The Democratic senator introduced the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act in Seeley Lake at Rich’s Montana Guest Ranch, adjacent to the 1.5 million-acre wilderness area, surrounded by outfitters and wilderness advocates.

The act would expand the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area to include Grizzly Basin and the Swan Front, the Scapegoat Wilderness Area to include the North Fork of the Blackfoot and Monture Creek, and the Mission Mountains Wilderness Areas to include the West Fork of the Clearwater.

The Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project, a coalition of loggers, ranchers, outfitters, recreationists and others that formed a decade ago to find collaborative solutions for public land uses in the Seeley Lake and Ovando area, crafted the proposal that became Tester’s legislation.

Bob Marshall advocates still pushing for wilderness part of lands deal

July 21, 2016Environmental Issues, NewsBlackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project, Bob Marshall Wilderness Complexnfpa

Chinese Wall - Bob Marshall Wilderness — Chinese Wall – Bob Marshall Wilderness

Members of the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Project are still working to get the wilderness components of their 2008 agreement implemented . . .

It seems odd to stand beside Seeley Lake, looking at the mountains that border the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, and not actually see the wilderness.

The border of that 1.6-million-acre, federally protected backcountry runs along the crest of the Swan Range. The western face of those mountains, where all the trailheads start, has no special status.

That makes sense from a scenic standpoint. The Seeley-Swan Valley lacks the churning peaks and glittering lakes that glorify the Bob Marshall and Mission Mountains wildernesses on either side. From the air, the state Highway 83 corridor offers no contest to the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

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