East Crazy Mountain Land Exchange now out for public comment
On November 9th, the Custer Gallatin National Forest released the East Crazy Mountains Land Exchange, formalizing a public process for the citizen-proposed land exchange that aims to consolidate public land and resolve conflict over access in the checker boarded Crazy Mountains.
We are committed to working with our community to identify solutions to land use conflicts in the Crazy Mountains. For the last several years, we’ve been showing up, meeting with neighbors, hosting open houses to listen to our community, and advocating to ensure as many conservation outcomes are incorporated into the proposal as possible.
On the whole, we are supportive of the land exchange. We have the opportunity now to ask for Forest Service to make it an even stronger proposal for conservation and our community.
The good news:
The exchange consolidates 30 square miles of a heavily checkerboarded area of the mountain range, increases protections by adding 6,430 acres to the Inventoried Roadless Area and adding 5,200 acres to the recommended backcountry area. It recognizes the significance of tribal nations, and creates a new 22-mile backcountry foot trail in one of the most inaccessible areas of the mountain range.
We’re happy to see that the Forest Service draft would result in more land consolidation and protection than the original proposal submitted to the Forest Service in 2021.
Like you, this is our first look at the Forest Service proposal. We’ll be diving into the details in the coming weeks and will share our comments as soon as possible.
It's not perfect, but it's a solid proposal and we think we can make it even better.
One of the elements we are excited about, a 640-acre private land section containing Smeller Lake, a high alpine lake on the south end of the Crazies, will become public.
I had the opportunity to hike to Smeller Lake this fall. (see the photo above)
Smeller Lake, like many high alpine lakes in the Crazy Mountains, is on private property. It should be protected for its wild and cultural values like the areas to the east that were recommended for wilderness in the Forest Plan.
Want to learn more:
You can see the full proposal here.
You can visit the Crazy Mountain Access Project here.
What's next:
The Forest Service is hosting two public meetings.
The first meeting will be 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 15 in Bozeman, at The Commons, 1794 East Baxter Lane.
The second meeting will be 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, November 16, in Big Timber at the Big Timber Elementary School, 501 Anderson Street.
In today's announcement, the Forest Service initiated a process called scoping, which is our opportunity as members of the public to tell the agency what else we think should be considering in evaluating the proposal.
The Forest Service will collect comment's through their online portal here. The public has 45 days to give those comments -- until December 23.
Stay tuned and expect to hear more from us on what we think of the proposal and what we will ask the Forest Service to consider as it moves forward. We'd love to hear from you on what you think, too!
This is an incredibly hard and complicated issue and we anticipate that there will be people in our community that aren't happy with the proposal. We want to hear from you and we want to understand as many perspectives as possible.
PCEC staff hiked through the Crazy Mountains this summer and have been on the ground in the project area. Sweetgrass Canyon is beautiful country and we plan to ask for conservation easements on as much of the newly acquired private property as possible to ensure the range remains wild and protected.
The Crazy Mountains face a lot of pressure from increasing development and recreation. There are still significant issues with public access that also need to be resolved as well. We're proud to be working together with our community on real solutions that will provide certainty for people and secure habitat for wildlife.
We hope to learn from you in the coming weeks, and we're excited to see where this goes next.