Crazy Mountain Public Access

[Z Barebow]

kat- I rarely chime in but I follow your posts very closely. When it comes to public lands, (And other topics), you are can ferreted out the details like no one I have ever seen!

Many of these foul scenarios are repeated elsewhere. You provide the playbook on how to get to the bottom. Keep up the good work.

 

[Hunts]

Just sent Daines a letter regarding this. My main point being the false attributing of comments made by an individual to Alex S and the subsequent reassignment.

 

[katqanna]

Z Barebow, thank you. Hopefully with some of these FOIA's and Public Information Requests I have recently put in, we can shine a light on some of this better. I am anxious for the FWP hunting license and tag one, see which of these guys put in or received tags in the Crazy Mountain hunt districts that many of the public can't get to, Especially Daines, who has pr information that he likes to recreate, hunt and fish in the Crazies, but does not own any land there, so I am wondering, just how does he get to enjoy that area, which landowner lets him in, since they block, harass and cite the general public.

Jim Posewitz son, Andrew, just wrote a piece, Crazy Mountains saga could be an episode of 'Dukes of Hazard'

And the Standard just ran my oped I sent out yesterday, Who will ensure, as public landowners, that we have access to our own public lands?

I talked with an AP guy and sent links, I know some other writers are working on the story, hopefully we can get this out of Montana, so that more people are aware of what is being plotted on the National front and can fight back through their legislators.

 

[katqanna]

Livingston ENTERPRISE EDITORIAL: Sienkiewicz reassignment raises questions

This is an important point, which is trying to be swept under the rug. "We would strongly disagree with the forest supervisor.

Sienkiewicz is a public official and any such review should be open and available for public scrutiny, especially considering the widespread interest this matter has generated in recent weeks across Montana.

The Forest Service must be forthcoming about the decisions leading up to Sienkiewicz’s reassignment. Furthermore, it must be transparent about its ongoing review.

After all, Sienkiewicz occupies a position of public trust and his actions in that role impact all forest users.

Furthermore, the Forest Service should work to determine and clearly define public access in the Crazies and stand with employees who work to safegaurd our precious public access."

The recent reassignment of Livingston District Ranger Alex Sienkiewicz of the United States Forest Service raises many questions.

The first and most obvious question is whether top-ranking Forest Service officials reassigned Sienkiewicz for working to improve access to public land.

Another question the federal agency must answer is whether this decision was politically motivated.

The reassignment comes during a time when our access to public lands is being threatened by special interest groups and others across the nation — groups that would rather sell off our public lands for their own private benefit.

Managing access to public lands in the Crazy Mountains northeast of Livingston has always been a sticking point, with a patchwork of public and private lands existing in the range.

If Sienkiewicz, a public employee working for a public agency was in fact reassigned for working to improve public access to public land, everyone who enjoys Montana’s public lands, should demand answers and a full review — not of Sienkiewicz, but of how and why the reassignment decision was made. In a Thursday guest column that appeared on this page, Dan Vermillion, a Livingston resident and the Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission chairman, wrote that many area residents believe Sienkiewicz is “being investigated for doing his job.”

Sienkiewicz’s reassignment and subsequent internal investigation is related to “ongoing issues around access in the Crazy Mountains and allegations from landowners about how Alex has navigated some of those disputes,” Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson told Yellowstone Newspapers in June.

Erickson declined to offer additional details, calling the review an “internal matter” that’s not “a public process.”

She further stated in her interview with Yellowstone Newspapers that the review is “not a public process and the results of that are not a public document.”

We would strongly disagree with the forest supervisor.

Sienkiewicz is a public official and any such review should be open and available for public scrutiny, especially considering the widespread interest this matter has generated in recent weeks across Montana.

The Forest Service must be forthcoming about the decisions leading up to Sienkiewicz’s reassignment. Furthermore, it must be transparent about its ongoing review.

After all, Sienkiewicz occupies a position of public trust and his actions in that role impact all forest users.

Furthermore, the Forest Service should work to determine and clearly define public access in the Crazies and stand with employees who work to safegaurd our precious public access.
— Justin Post
Enterprise Managing Editor

I dropped off my bike to have a new front axle put on and some spoke work done. I saw the acrylic map holder at the counter with all the trails available. I told the guys there what was going on, what was at stake with the efforts to get rid of these roads and trails on future maps. Made me think of the library book burnings. I have a alot of maps, but damn, not for all the US and not even for all of Montana. These guys gave me their emails to get the info sent to them, they are into access. Hopefull,y more will see how important this access info will be for maps, especially the older maps, before this special interest administration begins purging records, historic records data, disappearing our public access.

 

[katqanna]

In my MT FWP license request, I just received notice that 4 of my 14 did not have Montana Hunting licenses. The names were listed.

That means Sen. Orrin Hatch and Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue do have Montana hunting licenses. I realize that Montana is a great hunting and fishing destination, just having a hunting license in Montana does not represent a conflict of interest.

We will see if any of the 10 names put in for any draw tags in the Crazies.

 

[MTGomer]

That means Sen. Orrin Hatch and Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue do have Montana hunting licenses. We will see if they put in for any draw tags in the Crazies, along with the other 8 remaining on my list.

Well wouldn't that be something.

 

[bigskyblueman]

Kat, I have some of the older maps, circa 20-25 years old, for that area. Let me know if you need to use them.....

 

[katqanna]

Charles, thank you, that might be good to take a look at, take some screen shots from.

A phone conversation reminded me this evening that I had requested all that population survey data from 2008 to present, on Bighorns and Mountain Goats, for all of Montana a couple years ago. I pulled up the goat data for HD 313. Yeah, that huge population map is going to look very interesting next to the outfitting landownership info.

 

[Nameless Range]

Hi Kat, I'm sure you've probably already gone way further than this, but have you used the USGS Historical Topo Finder?

http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/

Click on a location and it brings up all the old USGS maps intersecting that point. Looks like a fair number of USGS series maps have trails in that area.

 

[SteveE]

Helena IR ran your piece today Kat.

Keep up the good fight!

 

[katqanna]

Nameless, thanks for the link, I downloaded the two for the Crazy Mountains. I had already purchased a book last fall, written on Ranger stations in MT, which included the Big Timber and another Crazy Mountain Ranger Station. The research that author had came from the MSU Research library, so I thought I would hit that too.

Thanks Steve.

Don Thomas' article ran today, Forest "dis-service' in the Crazy Mountains case

Consider the implications of the message sent by Daines and Purdue: Federal employees who upset influential constituents are at risk even when operating within the parameters established by their own agencies. Montanans of all political affiliations should find this chilling.

 

[katqanna]

I doubt the Bozeman Chronicle will run my oped, even though I live in Bozeman, because I specifically mentioned Daines by name, but they ran another LTE today.

Public land not for just the select, wealthy few

The author made me smile for a number of reasons.

On another note, not having hunted bears or mt. lions, I checked to see if they had to be brought in for inspection or reporting and was told yes. So I sent yet another public information, involving the 10 names that have a Montana hunting history, if any have mt. lion or bear harvesting info from the Crazy Mountains. That will be 5 species to see if there are potential conflicts of interest involved in those pursuing this Crazy Mountain and national prescriptive easement and "obliterated" access road/trail map issue.

 

[katqanna]

Dave Campbell, retired District Ranger in the Bitterroot, who was helpful in the recent Hughes Creek Road situation, had his oped come out in the Gazette.

Reinstate Gallatin Ranger Sienkiewicz

I just back from the west side of the Crazy Mountains (it's bloody hot today), doing some documentation. Brad Wilson, born and raised there, who started Friends of the Crazy Mountains to advocate for their public access, was my guide today. We documented the private locked gate that Zimmerman, one of the landowners that signed those letters, erected right over one of our forest access trails. I had my gps and maps, we went in on the trail and I shot footage of the blaze trees that mark the forest service trail. There used to be a sign up, a couple years ago, that Zimmerman put up on the wooden fence posts attached to the gate -"Private Property, No Forest Service Access, No Trespassing. The sign was not there now. As we were going back down the trail, Brad saw something white in the ditch, guess what we found - the sign, among other things.

I will get this stuff processed and posted later.

Yesterday, I was at the research library, found Forest Service log books for the Crazy Mountains, early 1900's. I took pics of every page, will pour over them after I make pdf's of each book for the public.

 

[katqanna]

For those that think I am crazy when I see patterns in my news aggregating erupting, whether it be transfer of federal public lands, local trespass traps/corner crossing, Russian connections, etc...


Privatizing our road/trail access brought to you by PERC, once again, like toll roads, where you pay the landowner, yes, a only a willing landowner.

With Airbnb, homeowners share the privacy of their own homes with total strangers. Uber drivers use their personal vehicles to give rides to people they don’t know. Why? Because the services allow users to contract in convenient, mutually beneficial ways and provide assurances that both sides will act responsibly.

Those same principles can be harnessed to provide private-land access — and, to some extent, they already are. Want to pitch a tent on private land? HipCamp, a startup based in San Francisco, has created a land-sharing program that allows people to do just that. Powderhook, an outdoor company in Nebraska, has experimented with a similar model for hunting and fishing access. And a Michigan college student is developing a land-sharing app that allows hunters and anglers to lease private land for short periods of time.

On the 14th there was article from another PERC guy in Colorado, Greg Walcher. I dug into PERC last year, they have member all over, not just Bozeman, and are extremely well funded. They can sit around and crank out privatizing articles, use their network until your eyes bleed, promoting privatization and profiting off of what the public has already had.

Now they are coming after our historic road/trail access, which by itself is bad enough, but it is a bridge to an even larger issue, the rest of our public lands.


The face of what is to come.

Perhaps one day, after summer vacations, oh, and then there is hunting season, that means end of November, damn, but then that puts us into Thanksgiving and then Christmas and don't forget New Years... okay so maybe around mid January, hunters and anglers might have some time to give a $h*t to start playing the inevitable defense again. That might be optimistic. The pattern seems to be to wait until a bill or agency directive is happening, if they catch it, then run around with hair on fire, trying to prevent this from happening nationwide. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Personally, I hate defense!

To submit Letter To the Editor (LTE) or Opinion Editorial (Oped), most papers have the same policy: Letters have a word limit or fewer, and MUST include your real name, city of residence and daytime phone number (they call to confirm that you are who you are and you actually sent in the LTE. In the Subject Line begin with LTE or Oped, then your title. Some papers only publish letters from within their primary readership. Opinion Editorials (Oped) from groups/organizations, established writers, have higher word limits and may request a picture.

• Helena Independant Record - [email protected] LTE 200, Oped 700
• Missoulian - [email protected] LTE 200, Oped 700
• Billings Gazette - [email protected] LTE 250, Oped 700
• Bozeman Chronicle - [email protected] LTE 300, Oped 650
• Great Falls Tribune - [email protected] LTE 200, Oped 700
• Montana Standard - [email protected] LTE 400, Oped 600
• Ravalli Republic - [email protected] LTE 300, Oped 700
• Livingston Enterprise - [email protected] LTE ?, Oped 550

We need this issue addressed in other states, in larger news media, organization publications and outdoor journals, not just Montana.

 

[shoots-straight]

In the Root we won one small concession in getting back the access that was stolen from us. If the efforts of PERC aren't confronted by all of us that use public lands, then we'll have no one else to blame but ourselves for diminished access. Sportsmen are a goofy lot in that they have boisterous opinions dealing with management, the type of caliber of rifle to use on big game, bullet weight, or type of backpack and tent to use, but they show massive empathy towards actually doing something about the things that really matter.

If your even halfway good with the pen, plot down your feelings about how losing access to public lands would effect you and your family members, and do send those in to the papers. Join a group that fights for public lands and get involved. You might even enjoy being with other sportsman that feel the same way you do.

Thanks Kat we appreciate what your doing.

 

[katqanna]

Montana’s Crazy land controversy

...The simmering controversy heated up last fall when Bozeman hunter Rob Gregoire was cited by a Sweet Grass County deputy sheriff for trespassing on a trail that he and Sienkiewicz believe to be open to the public by “prescriptive easement,” because it has historically been used by the public to access otherwise inaccessible public land.

Landowners Lee and Barbara Langhus disagree and made the trespass complaint. There is no written easement allowing public access across their land, although the trail has long been marked on Forest Service maps and cited in the Gallatin Forest Travel Plan.

The Crazy Mountains contain more than 8,000 acres of National Forest that the public has no way of accessing. That forest land is surrounded by private holdings. The Crazies also contain a hunting district, much of which is inaccessible to the public, with 2,000 elk — twice the district’s maximum target as determined by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks.

That’s the hunting district that Gregoire was trying to reach. The oversupply of elk feast on some neighbors’ hay supplies, while others profit from exclusive, limited hunts...

From facts reported previously in The Gazette, it appears that Sienkiewicz is being penalized for doing his job. Government employees deserve to know that their supervisors — even the secretary of the department — will stand up for them when they are serving the public.

However, the Forest Service and local landowners have some fence mending to do. Custer Gallatin Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson should have authority to devise better ways to build trust between local landowners and Forest Service personnel in the field. The local forest working group should actively engage citizens with differing perspectives...

Daines and Perdue must stop micromanaging staff in the Gallatin Forest. Daines should listen to all his constituents, relay their concerns and then let land management professionals do their jobs.

Perdue should see that decision making about forest land is led by department professionals in Montana — not from his Washington, D.C., office.

 

[katqanna]

I have been doing some organizational work on the Crazy Mountain section of the website to deal with the larger amount of documents coming and what I already have. I set up the Letters page, which includes the three sportsmen's letters, all of which went to Daines.

I just got a letter from Senator Tester's office, which he sent to Sec. Perdue and Forest Service Chief Tidwell, on this issue.

I also helped Brad secure their unofficial organization name with the Secretary of States office and am setting up a temp webpage for them with all their contact and other information, might be done tonight. I had to spend way to much of my day fighting this ongoing battle with the MDT over those county fuel tax maps they keep trying to keep me from (going on 2 months now). So today was interim legislator for transportation department phone day.

Anyway, I am glad Tester is asking for a fair and transparent process on behalf of the greater good to the public.

 

[katqanna]

Had some issues with the power up here in Brady, then some tech issues on the rendering of the video with this new Adobe program, so I am a couple days behind in getting this out.

Today's Newsletter - Clearing Up Crazy Mountain Public Access Muddy Waters

I have a wee bit of a rebuttal on a recent oped that went out; the two recent LTEs from lifelong Republicans upset at what is going on; the Crazy Mountain landowners, the Cosgriffs, letters about what Rein and Carroccias were doing to their access, to help refute that this is not a landowner vs recreationist stereotype; USFS Robert Dennee's affidavit which involves prescriptive easements with historical access and specifically the Porcupine-Lowline FS Trail on the west side, involving the Zimmermans; US Deputy Assistant General Counsel (Washington D.C.), James B. Snow's letter involving a similar situation with an outfitting landowner in another part of the Gallatin, calling our public land access theft what it is; the temporary Friends of the Crazy Mountains webpage and the first segment of the video shot out there. This is where I had the wee bit of learning curve with the new Adobe video program, everything was easy till the export.

At any rate, here is the video with Brad discussing some of the issue on the west side, including a testimony for Alex Sienkiewicz.

[video=youtube;yp7RwTyODWM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp7RwTyODWM[/video]

 

[katqanna]

The Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics called a bit ago about the Alex Sienkiewicz/Crazy Mountain issue. I walked him through the documents online.

They just came out with an article - Trump Administration and Senator Target District Ranger

It is basic, but it is the first outside of Montana publication, of the journalists I have talked with, to publish on this.

FSEEE

Our mission is to protect national forests and to reform the U.S. Forest Service by advocating environmental ethics, educating citizens, and defending whistleblowers.

FSEEE is made up of thousands of concerned citizens, present, former, and retired Forest Service employees, other government resource managers, and activists working to change the Forest Service’s basic land management philosophy.

FSEEE is a unique concept—a national organization of government employees holding the Forest Service accountable for responsible land stewardship. FSEEE believes that the land is a public trust, to be passed with reverence from generation to generation. The Forest Service and other public agencies must follow the footsteps of Aldo Leopold, a pioneer of conservation, and become leaders in the quest for a new resource ethic. Together we must work toward an ecologically and economically sustainable future.

 

[FAIR CHASE]

Why does Kat only have 6 subscribers on her youtube channel? WTH?