Dear Editor,
North of Yellowstone Park lies a mythic land of volcanic peaks, petrified trees, rushing creeks, ice cold springs, vast flower meadows and world class wildlife. Familiar as the southern skyline of the Gallatin Valley and the eastern horizon for Big Sky, the Gallatin Mountain Range ranks among the wildest, most intact ecosystems in America. These great sweeping ridges and dark cliffs, vast snowdrifts and rugged canyons lure adventurers from around the country. This is also ground zero for rare animals like grizzly bears and wolverines.
If you want to experience it yourself, try a challenging hike along the “Devil’s Backbone” — the crest of the Gallatin Range. You will be enchanted by the wild beauty, abundant wildlife, lush vegetation and remote nature of this magnificent mountain range as you hike the 40 miles of high country hiking from Hyalite to Yellowstone.
The wild Gallatins are overdue for real, lasting, long term protection. For decades the Gallatin Range was subject to heavy logging, road building and extensive, unregulated off road vehicle and snowmobile traffic. Shocking clearcuts spread through the pristine spruce and fir forests, and roads slashed across steep wet mountainsides. Trails were churned into muddy ruts by motor vehicles.
The Forest Service allowed dirt bikes, ATVs, snowmobiles and mountain bikes to run wild in most areas of the Gallatins despite the fact the core of the range (155,000 acres) had been set aside as a Wilderness Study Area in 1977. It was only through a 2004 lawsuit that the WSA was somewhat shielded from abuse by people on dirt bikes, snowmobiles and mountain bikes. But the critical wildlife habitat of the Porcupine and Buffalo Horn drainage—home to one of the biggest elk herds in Montana—was allowed to become a playground for people on motorized and mechanized toys.
The Gallatins are still under under siege, with recent logging taking a toll on forests close to the burgeoning city of Bozeman. But the biggest threat may be so called conservation groups.
The Gallatin Forest Partnership would have you believe they offer a progressive, protective solution for hotly contested wildlands of the Gallatin Range. They are selling their proposal as a consensus-created plan that will benefit wildlife and people. In reality the GFP is a regressive, milquetoast proposal that sells out wildlife habitat while locking in high-impact recreation that can only degrade the habitat. The GFP wants to designate a “Wildlife and Recreation Management Area” in Porcupine and Buffalo Horn—an oxymoron if ever there was one. Clearly recreation would take precedence and wildlife would once again be an afterthought.
Loud and fast machines like dirt bikes, snowmobiles and mountain bikes do not mix well with shy and sensitive wildlife like wolves, grizzly bears, wolverines, lynx, moose and elk. These wild creatures are what define the Gallatin Range, recognized as a critical wildlife corridor by the Forest Service and as the largest unprotected roadless area in Greater Yellowstone. The Gallatins are one of the last strongholds for iconic American wildlife. But the mountains are being parceled out by so called conservation groups in a massive compromise.
The Gallatin Range holds at least 230,000 acres of roadless land that should be designated as Wilderness. The GFP proposal would only designate about 90,000 acres of that as wilderness—far less than the existing Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo Horn WSA.
We do appreciate the GFP’s proposal to designate Cowboy Heaven as wilderness, linking the Beartrap wilderness with the Spanish Peaks. So why not do the same for the iconic Gallatin Range, linking the Hyalite Peaks with Yellowstone Park?
Over half of the national forest in the Gallatin Range has already been degraded by roads and logging, leaving drainages like Little Bear, Portal Creek, Eightmile and Swan Creek a maze of crumbling roads and scrappy regrowth forest. Let’s get it together and protect the remaining Gallatin Range wildlands—in the top 1% of wildlife habitat in the lower 48 states—as Wilderness. Anything less is a disservice to people and wildlife of the future.
Phil Knight
Bozeman, Montana
Co-authored by: Dennis Glick, Clint Nagel, George Wuerthner and Lance Craighead
