Off-Road Vehicles  Dominate
Beaverhead- Deerlodge Forest Plan

By Phil Knight

The Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest, at over 3.3 million acres, is bigger than Yellowstone and Glacier national parks combined. This magnificent Montana forest sprawls across 18 mountain ranges and 450 miles of the Continental Divide. It’s hard to imagine a more diverse, spectacular landscape in the lower 48 states.

Here in southwest Montana you can still find remote, wild country to satisfy the need to get away from it all. As the Forest Plan stated in 1986, “The Forest is characterized by remoteness and limited vehicular access.”

Mount Jefferson, the Italian Peaks, the Sapphires and West Pioneers Wilderness Study Areas, the East Pioneers, the Gravelley Range, Cowboy Heaven, Whitetail Meadows, the Snowcrest Range, the Tobacco Root Mountains, the West Big Hole…I’ve been to a few of these places, and am laying plans to see more of it. You should do the same.

But don’t assume it will remain wild and remote. There’s been an ongoing, incremental assault on these lands for the past couple of decades, in the form of motor vehicles. Ever more powerful (and expensive) vehicles take riders into country that until recently was accessible only to people willing to take some time and expend some energy to get there. Now even the remotest, wildest mountain cirques are the playgrounds of the rich and motorized. Only six percent of the forest enjoys permanent protection as designated Wilderness, leaving much of it open to motor madness.

The Forest Service has recently released their final forest plan, which will guide management of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge for decades to come. NOW is our chance to let the Forest Service know what we want to see happen on our precious public lands.

Get your letters in before March 31!!!

Emphasize how important the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Forest is to you, your family and friends. Let them know that quiet use areas are extremely important to you. Tell them where you like to go on the forest and what you like to do, and that you do not wish to share your public trails with motorized vehicles.

Please request the following special places be protected from the impacts of motorized recreation:

West Pioneers: Quiet use only for Sawtooth Lake, Polaris Lake, and Scott Lake to allow for fishing and cross-country skiing.

West Big Hole: Close to snowmobile use and designate year-round non-motorized status for Berry Creek/ Berry Meadows, Hamby Creek and Clam Valley.

Electric Peak/Little Blackfoot Meadows: Close year round to motorized use; key portions of these areas were left open to motorized use.

Torrey Mountain area in the East Pioneers: Add Black Lion, Granite, Baldy and Tent Mountains, Cherry Creek, Twin Lakes, Bobs Lake and Black Lion Lake to the non-motorized area.

Tobacco Roots: Establish non-motorized status for Lost Cabin/Lake Louise, Curly Lake and Hollowtop Lakes, and provide a quiet use area in Ramshorn/Mill Gulch at the south end of range for cross country skiing. Create a non-motorized cross-country ski loop in Meadow Creek.

Designate the entire Whitetail-Haystack/O’Nell roadless area as non-motorized.

Close Deadman Lake in the Italian Peaks to motorized use.

Improvements in the current plan over the draft plan include the following:

There will be no new resort development, no heli-skiing, and no “extreme sports courses” (such as mountain bike racecourses or snowmobile hill climbs).

The non-motorized areas of the forest have increased from 249,000 acres to 329,000 (outside of designated Wilderness). The non-motorized zones include:

The Snowcrest Range

Stony Mountain

East Fork Rock Creek

Ross Fork Rock Creek

Table Mountain in the Highland Mountains

Sapphires Crest North and South (one of two Wilderness Study Areas on the forest)

Torrey Mountain in the East Pioneers

Garfield Mountain/Lima Peaks

An expanded closure on Middle Mountain in the Tobacco Roots

Summer closures for Lost Creek, Foster Creek, Meadow Lakes and Indian Meadows in the Flint Range.

Also, some of the ORV corridors were eliminated in the Whitetail/Haystack/O'Neill Roadless Area.

Send your comments by March 31 to:

Bruce Ramsey, Forest Supervisor
Forest Plan Revision Comments
Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest
420 Barrett St.
Dillon, MT 59725
E-mail: comments-northern-beaverhead-deerlodge@fs.fed.us

For more information on this project visit Montanans For Quiet Recreation.