Montana – Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest Winter Travel Planning

The Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest (BDNF) is taking another look at how it manages motorized winter use under its 2009 Forest Plan and is considering amending the plan. The Forest Service’s decision will determine how the agency manages snowmobiles across the eight mountain ranges, vast backcountry, and world-class wildlife habitat within the 3.3 million-acre forest.

You can read through the supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) on Forest Service website.  If you were involved in this planning effort back in the early 2000’s the alternatives the Forest Service is comparing may look familiar.  That’s because they haven’t changed.  However, when the BDNF wrote it’s 2009 forest plan it failed to analyze how snowmobile use under each alternative would impact other resources (like wilderness lands, wildlife habitat, and backcountry skiing).  This SEIS compares the impacts from snowmobile use under the current plan versus the impacts under the other alternatives considered when the plan was written.  The agency is required to minimize these impacts and we feel that change is needed.

We are asking the BDNF to amend the Forest Plan to no longer allow snowmobiling on the eastern side of Mt Jefferson.  For over 6 years we have worked with the Forest Service to monitor snowmobile use in this area and this monitoring has clearly shown that the current motorized/non-motorized boundary is ineffective.  Snowmobiles frequently travel throughout the non-motorized area in the upper Hellroaring basin and into the adjacent BLM Wilderness Study Area.  Moving the boundary to the Continental Divide will better protect wild lands and restore opportunities for  backcountry skiing that many feel have been lost on Mt Jefferson in recent years.

We would also like to see the BDNF take the common-sense approach of closing low-elevation or low-snow areas where snowmobiling rarely occurs.  This pre-emptive action would protect big game winter range and allow the Forest Service to better utilize it’s limited resources.

Please take a moment to write to the Forest Service and request that the agency do more to protect Mt. Jefferson and other important winter wild lands on the BDNF.  Comments should be sent to Jan Bowey at jbowey@fs.fed.us.

Comments are due by March 3, 2016.