Roaded Montana!

[shoots-straight]

You say you want big bulls? How about big Mule deer? Whitetailed deer? Well can you have roads, unbridled access to those animals, a five week rifle and 6 week archery, followed by late seasons?

The Bitterroot National Forest travel plan came out and special interest groups are screaming foul at being stopped from accessing some areas with the mechanical vehicles of choice. I'm losing my patience with them.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/ro...cle_5308d31a-ef4a-5059-90c4-687dce71ff67.html

 

[James Riley]

I made the fundamental mistake of reading the comments after the article. The usual false dichotomies, two-valued orientations and other failures in logic. The idea that we wouldn't have the good things we have if we had not done the bad things we did (thus making them not bad) is illogical. Even if that were true, the idea the good things we have would go away if we stopped doing bad things, or endeavored to address previous wrongs (thus rendering them not bad and not wrong), is equally flawed.

The buggy whip is the buggy whip. Duh! I'd suggest that guy ought to live in New York City but why should he? Just make Montana into New York City. That's the ticket.

Regarding the maps, you get the same gist by looking at the night time view of the Earth from satellite; it's lit up like a Christmas Tree. And the humanists find beauty in that.

 

[Nameless Range]

That map tells the tale.

The shock increases when you buffer all existing roads. Years back when the Helena National Forest was working on a travel plan, people in Jefferson County were cryin about the gubmint' closing all the roads. I buffered all existing roads in Jefferson County to display all those areas that exist more than one mile from a road.

They are tiny and few and far between.

 

[Straight Arrow]

It seems strange that those wanting more roads and increased road maintenance also think USFS and BLM are getting too much money and can't do anything right.

I am also upset with Kerry White and his Citizens for Balanced Abuse, who want roads, tracts, and thoroughfares up to the top of every mountain and into every cirque containing a lake.

 

[James Riley]

It seems strange that those wanting more roads and increased road maintenance also think USFS and BLM are getting too much money and can't do anything right.

I am also upset with Kerry White and his Citizens for Balanced Abuse, who want roads, tracts, and thoroughfares up to the top of every mountain and into every cirque containing a lake.

I don't know if they are still around but there used to be an outfit called "The Blue Ribbon Coalition" and your "Citizens for Balanced Abuse" reminds me of them. The NRA got in bed with them on some wilderness battles and that is when I bailed. Too bad that had to happen.

 

[Straight Arrow]

Citizens for Balanced Use (CBU) was actually a respectable trail advocacy group for snowmobilers and other trail users until Kerry White morphed it into an anti-USFS and anti-federal government hate group with a focus on defining multiple use as mechanized access to every square inch of public land.

 

[----]

Although I completely agree with the sentiment of the article, I wish they had a border on that map. A bunch of our wilderness/WSA's are right on the border, and aren't really represented in this map.

I also question whether it's fair to have roads on there that have been reclaimed and will never be drive-able again. A lot of work went in to making those roads not-roads.

Not disagreeing with the premise at all, but the map seems somewhat disingenuous to me.

 

[katqanna]

I was on the Gallatin Community Collaborative Science Panel, to make sure sound science was being used in the process of the Gallatin Wilderness. Kerry White was one of the heads of that subgroup. So I was more than a wee bit concerned with his agenda. They are trying to make it all open to all the vehicular uses everywhere, contrary to the FS road plan. There were only 2 hunter advocates there, at the time, counting me. I had the academic papers on the effects of roads on ungulates and such.

The GYC has pretty much set the whole thing up as a multi year money maker. So long as there is an ongoing problem, they are going to keep generating lots of funds for longterm. I got out because I didnt feel the group was really set up to deal with the legalities of the travel plan, instead of the longterm "massaging" of a controversial subject.

It was interesting at the last 9 county commissioner meeting of the new working group they got started almost a year ago. I go to their monthly meetings, audio tape them and take notes. They began to increase roads and increase logging in the Custer Gallatin Forest. So the GYC (one of the CGWG members) apparently sent in a very lengthy letter against a number of parts of the Hegben proposal. I was curious why they came out with so many points against it. Then one of their reps was explaining his letter to their Custer Gallatin Work Group and prefaced that a lot of their GYC members live or own land up there. Kerry White is not a part of this group, but his brother Steve White is. Some of the other county commissioners that have shown up are some that have contributed to Ken Ivory's American Lands Council.

 

[Straight Arrow]

GYC = Greater Yellowstone Coalition?

Some of the other county commissioners that have shown up are some that have contributed to Ken Ivory's American Lands Council.

Gallatin County commissioners? Who?

 

[.280 Remington]

Although I completely agree with the sentiment of the article, I wish they had a border on that map. A bunch of our wilderness/WSA's are right on the border, and aren't really represented in this map.

I also question whether it's fair to have roads on there that have been reclaimed and will never be drive-able again. A lot of work went in to making those roads not-roads.

Not disagreeing with the premise at all, but the map seems somewhat disingenuous to me.

++1