The area south of Plains, Montana is home to the Combest and Swamp Creek drainages. This area has been open to the public and utilized by the folks who live in Plains and the surrounding communities for a wide variety of outdoor activities for generations. That may change with the property hitting the open market.
Public Access and hunting: This area sits on the north end of Montana Hunting District 124 (and Bighorn Sheep District 122) and is home to numerous game species and elk winter range. Losing this kind of hunting and access opportunities to development this close to town has an effect on everyone. This area is also an important wildlife corridor, especially for elk. There is a healthy population of mule deer, white tail deer, moose and other game and non-game species.
This area also provides some wonderful public access to Lolo National Forest trails and DNRC Timber Land. The Swamp Creek and Dee Creek trailheads are accessed through MKH Property and continue into the CC Divide Trail System which provides access to Mineral County and other areas west of Plains. This route also provides access opportunities for off road vehicles and motorcycles.
If this area was to be sold and privatized, there is worry it possibly create long-term public access issues if a land owner were to decide to gate the road going into the properties to National Forest land. There are also access roads to existing mining claims in the area.
Working timberlands and grazing: This area also provides a long term timber base to two local timber mills which include Thompson River Lumber and Idaho Forest Group’s St.Regis Mill (which is currently idled). This land has historically been owned as timber lands for both Plum Creek and Weyerhaeuser. Both the Lolo National Forest and Montana DNRC use this area to access their timberlands and this access provides much needed logs for our local economy and our local schools. Large scale development threatens our local log supply as it cuts logging units and wildlife habitat into pieces.
These lands along with the public lands around them have also been used for cattle grazing over the years.
Economics: As areas in and around Northwest Montana grow at such a crazy pace, the question of long time access and the quality of our rural life start to come up. Development is going to come with the changing times, but with that comes questions about the costs and benefits. Such growth generally brings higher property taxes, law enforcement capacity, road building and maintenance costs and fire prevention and protection.
The economic benefits comes with more spending on some essential services and consumptive spending. To some extent, this does not make up for the loss of rural living, farming, timber and the loss of public access and wildlife harvesting opportunities. In these rural communities, most folks live off of the land and count on access to these areas to feed their families and to be able to recreate in their backyards.
The loss of traditional rural lands for local families…
The loss of these lands could mean the displacement of wildlife, the removal of outdoor exploration and hunting/ trapping. We need the residents of Plains and Sanders county to join us in vocalizing how much public access to the lands around us mean to us.
Come see what we’re doing: https://plainspublicaccess.org/whats-at-stake/what-do-we-do-next/
Plains Public Access 