The Kootenai National Forest plans to close Grave Creek/Trail Creek Road from August 20 through September 6. They are replacing a bridge at mile 14.1, about 2.2 miles west of the Flathead National Forest boundary. See the official press release for details.
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The Robert Fire ten years later
The Flathead Beacon has a nice retrospective on the 2003 fire season, the Robert Fire in particular . . .
The rolled-up maps in Dennis Divoky’s office show the enormity of the 2003 fires in Glacier National Park. Huge swaths of land are colored in red and orange, depicting in print the 136,000 acres of land burned that summer. It was the biggest fire season in the park’s history – even larger than 1910’s “Big Burn.”
“The 2003 season is the pinnacle,” said Divoky, fire ecologist for the park.
That summer, the National Park Service responded to 26 wildfires that scorched roughly 13 percent of the park’s land. Of those, six blazes were larger than 10,000 acres. The Robert Fire alone burned 57,570 acres of land in the park and Flathead National Forest and forced multiple evacuations of the Lake McDonald Valley and West Glacier. By September, the fires had cost the Park Service more than $68 million.
Feds delay wolf plan independent review
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service messed up the initial stages of an independent scientific review of their plan to remove federal protections for wolves across most of the U.S. Now they have to back up and try again . . .
A federal agency is delaying an independent analysis of a plan to drop legal protections for wolves across most of the nation because of concerns about the selection of experts to conduct the review, an official said Tuesday.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in June called for removing gray wolves across the Lower 48 states from the endangered species list, with an exception for the struggling Mexican wolf in the Southwest. Agency director Dan Ashe said the wolf had recovered to the point that it could thrive and even enlarge its territory without federal oversight, although some advocates and members of Congress said the move was premature.
Xanterra selected as new Glacier Park concessioner
The National Park Service has selected Xanterra Parks & Resorts as the new Glacier Park concessioner for the next 16 years, replacing Glacier Park, Inc., which as been operating the park concessions since 1981.
And, yes, this is the same Xanterra with connections to Anschutz Exploration Corp., the outfit that was until recently performing exploratory drilling on the Blackfeet Reservation along the eastern boundary of Glacier Park. Both Anschutz Exploration and Xanterra Parks and Resorts are owned by Philip Frederick Anschutz, one of the wealthiest billionaires in the nation. Xanterra is likely to prove a controversial choice.
Here is the lead-in for the official press release . . .
The National Park Service has selected Xanterra Parks & Resorts, Inc. (Xanterra) to provide a variety of visitor services in Glacier National Park for the next 16 years.
The new park concessions contract is anticipated to begin in January 2014 and includes lodging, food and beverage, retail, transportation and other visitor services within the park. This fall Xanterra is expected to work with Glacier Park, Inc. during a transition period. Glacier Park, Inc. has held the current park concessions contract since 1981.
Building a new management plan for the Flathead River Corridor
The Flathead Beacon just posted another of their “Focusing on…” articles, this time discussing the challenges to the Flathead River Corridor from increasing recreational pressure, which is forcing consideration of a new river corridor plan. Recommended reading . . .
The rhythm of the North Fork flows to a mellow tempo, even as the steady thrum of traffic and the ever-present flotilla of rafts and kayaks sketch a clear portrait of the wild and scenic river corridor’s growth and popularity.
Dust clouds roll off this unpaved portion of Highway 486, also known as the North Fork Flathead Road, and the meter of traffic ticking along the western border of Glacier National Park has given rise to the need for a new river management plan.
Designated a National Wild and Scenic River in 1976, the three forks of the Flathead River amount to 219 miles of what everyone agrees is “a very special place,” says Rob Davies, the Flathead National Forest’s district ranger for the Hungry Horse/Glacier View district. The North Fork Flathead River is protected by that designation, while its eastern tributaries and uplands are tucked away in Glacier Park. Its Canadian headwaters are protected by a provincial ban on mining and drilling, and U.S. Sen. Max Baucus has introduced legislation that would prohibit new energy and mineral development on the nearly 400,000 acres of the North Fork watershed within the Flathead National Forest.
Still, public land managers say the river corridor is being impacted by increased use, and have been collecting data to inform the future of the river corridor, while calling on the public to help adopt a new management strategy for recreational use.
New oil exploration leases near Glacier Park trigger concern
Renewed concerns about oil exploration along the Rocky Mountain Front . . .
A series of new oil exploration leases on the border of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Glacier National Park has renewed the anger and motivation of those opposed to energy development along the Rocky Mountain Front.
The leases were found last week among records held by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. They include nine lease blocks, two of which include a portion of Chief Mountain — the square-shaped landmark mountain along the eastern border of the national park.
Bob Brown: Collaborative forest agreements are the future
Bob Brown has a pretty good opinion piece in this week’s Hungry Horse News discussing the increasing importance of citizen-based collaborative forest agreements. It’s good background on an increasingly important way of getting diverse interests to work together . . .
Last month, Chuck Roady, vice president and general manager of F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co., a family-owned sawmill that has been operating in Northwest Montana for more than 100 years, traveled to Washington, D.C., to share with the powers that be what it’s like to run a mill in Montana.
At the invitation of Rep. Steve Daines, Roady spoke to the House Natural Resources Committee about the web of lawsuits that too often ensnare federal timber sales. He called it, with good reason, “endless litigation.”
Roady reminded the lawmakers that lawsuits have forced the Forest Service to spend as much as $350 million a year on “timber sale analysis.” That’s tax money that could be productively spent on the ground, on projects that create lunch-bucket jobs, improve forest health and reduce the threat of increasingly deadly and destructive fires.
Before we Montanans hold our collective breath waiting for Congress to cut the web and ax the analysis, we might take heart by looking closer to home. Here in Montana, some forward-thinking people have simply gone ahead and taken the responsibility of finding homegrown solutions to resource issues . . .
Still Kintla Lake ranger at age 93
I’ve met Lyle Ruterbories — nice guy. And still driving that Volkswagen Beetle of his up to Kintla Lake each year to serve as the ranger . . .
There’s a 40-foot spruce tree tucked in the back of the Kintla Lake Ranger Station, swaying in the wind. When Lyle Ruterbories started as the ranger there, the tree was only waist high.
Ruterbories is 93. He’s been watching over Kintla Lake and its campground every summer for 22 years now. This may be his last summer, he hasn’t decided yet. He has a cranky knee now that hurts with every step. But whatever happens, it’s been a glorious career in a glorious place.
‘Work day’ event part of Baucus’ efforts to support North Fork
The Flathead Beacon has a good write-up, with photos, of Sen. Max Baucus “work day” last Tuesday near Big Creek . . .
Chipping away at the sun baked dirt with a Pulaski axe, a hard-hat clad Max Baucus graded out the slope of a hiking trail high above the North Fork Flathead River near the Big Creek tributary, buffing out a ribbon of single track that tops out on Glacier View Mountain but hasn’t been maintained since fire scoured the hillside in 2001.
In many ways, it was another day at the office for Montana’s senior senator, but instead of walking the halls of Congress he climbed steep switchbacks, chatting with and sweating alongside young members of a Montana Conservation Corps trail crew instead of running the Senate Finance Committee.
Larry Wilson: Thompson-Seton Peak by mule and foot
For those of you who haven’t encountered Larry Wilson’s enthusiastic Thompson-Seton trip report, here it is. Kudos to Frank Vitale for coming up with the idea in the first place and making it happen . . .
What a great trip. Regular readers of this column will no doubt remember Frank Vitale and I debating the wilderness issue in this newspaper late last summer. That debate ended with Frank challenging me to go with him on his mules to Thompson-Seton Peak, where we would sit down and debate the issue on the mountain top. After getting Frank to agree to not only take me into the mountains but also bring me out, I accepted the challenge.
Unfortunately, the weather turned wet and cold, and we had to postpone the trip until the summer. During the winter, we were both involved in the Whitefish Range Partnership, and over the course of the meetings, we both became fully aware of the other’s feelings and concerns about wilderness. Thus, there was no big need for a mountain-top debate, but I was still anxious to take the trip and was more than happy that Frank, too, was still willing to take me.
July 28 was set as a mutually acceptable date, and I was so excited I started putting my gear together a week ahead of time…