The Final Days of Montana's Finest Singletrack
Photo: Bob Allen
|
Words: Lou Mazzante
As the Wilderness debate intensifies in Montana, hundreds of miles of singletrack
could be closed to bikes. But that’s just the beginning. New Forest
Service policies–er, philosophies–could soon spread across the country, jeopardizing
access to thousands of miles of America’s best trails. It’s high time to
start paying attention to the Wilderness battle.
This is a love story. And because this is a love story, it is also a story about hate, jealousy,
rage and deception. It’s about fighting a war, about winning and losing, and ultimately, it’s
about winners and losers.
And if this story were to end now, you would be one of the losers.
You would lose to the loggers and ranchers. To the developers, hikers, snowmobilers, hunters
and everyone else who wants your trails. Because they love these trails more than you do. And
because they love them, they want to close them, protect them, develop them, restore them and
care for them. They want to walk and run and trot over them. And because they love these trails
so dearly, they are fighting for them. And they are kicking your ass.
It’s a good thing, then, that this story is just beginning.
It’s beginning in Montana, where hundreds of trails could be closed this year. It’s beginning in
Washington, D.C., where new Forest Service policies could spread across the nation, potentially
closing tens of thousands of miles of trails to mountain bikes. And it’s beginning in your backyard.
You are Corey Biggers, 51, owner of a
Freightliner dealership outside Bozeman,
Montana. You are a mountain biker, a hunter,
married to a horse-riding rodeo queen.
You are a short, direct, firecracker of a man
whose face flushes red from excitement, as
well as from anger and frustration. And right
now, you are frustrated. You have been riding
mountain bikes in Montana for two decades,
but there are people who want to ban you
from your favorite trails. So you helped create
the Montana Mountain Bike Alliance to fight
for access to those trails. Because that’s what
you do when a problem arises—you fix it.
Biggers pulls into the trailhead at Mile Creek, his blue Toyota Tacoma heavy with bikes and hunting gear. He has just returned from four days in the Henry’s Lake Mountains, where he chased elk and deer through remote corners of the forest on his Cannondale hardtail. Although he never fired his bow, he rode the trails and enjoyed four days of solitude. Now, all Biggers wants to do is celebrate the end of summer by riding Mile Creek one last time before the snows fall, and before he is banned from this beautiful singletrack for good.
It’s mid-September and the weather is unseasonably mild. It has been two weeks since rain has fallen in the Henry’s, and the temperatures at lower elevations have hovered in the 70s. This weekend, Labor Day weekend, is one of the busiest of the year for our nation’s National Forests, when millions of hikers, mountain bikers, hunters, dirt bike riders and fishermen take to the hills and rivers.
But not here. The Henry’s are some of the most remote mountains in Montana, a state already known for its remoteness, a state that has more cows than people. Reaching the trailhead requires a two-hour drive south from Bozeman, following the Madison River toward Idaho as it passes the sprawling ranch of Ted Turner, past rivers and lakes, past sleepy villages and long stretches of nothing but tall grass, rolling hills and abandoned homesteads.
Despite its remoteness, this trail in the Lionhead Recommended Wilderness of Gallatin National Forest is relatively new. The narrow, well-defined singletrack gradually climbs along the Mile Creek drainage, gaining elevation as it unravels through thick brush along the water’s edge. Two miles in, the trail dips to the south and enters a canyon ringed by granite peaks, some still covered in snow. The Continental Divide Trail rests along the far ridge at nearly 10,000 feet.
To reach it, riders must negotiate more than 40 switchbacks that climb 2,880 vertical vine to a wall of loose dirt. Each corner is armored with rocks, buttressed by stones. They are immaculately built—lovingly built.
Partly because of this trail, people love the Lionhead. It is rugged, pristine terrain, inhabited by grizzly bears, eagles and cougars as well as alpine lakes, majestic peaks and crystalline mountain streams. In 1987, the U.S. Forest Service decided it loved the Lionhead, too, and drew a line around 23,000 acres on their map and requested that this area be protected as Wilderness. Because it’s natural to protect what we love.
At the top of the trail, where Mile Creek crests a steep granite ridge and runs headlong into the Continental Divide Trail, Biggers surveys the landscape. He looks west into Idaho and south into Yellowstone National Park and Wyoming. His face is red from the climbing, but also from frustration.
This trail, and many others in the area, might soon be closed to mountain bikes because the Forest Service in Montana has new ideas on how to manage its land. And many of those ideas exclude mountain bikes.
“If we lose this trail, it will be bad for mountain bikers in the rest of the nation,” he says. “I don’t think we’ll lose, but God help us if we do.”
RSS
TWITTER 
FACEBOOK
YOUTUBE
Add Comment