Bigfork ranger station oversees collaborative projects on Blacktail Mountain

There’s a stack of bound documents in Rich Kehr’s office that’s about five inches tall.

The documents represent years of work at the Swan Lake Ranger District in Bigfork outlining vegetation management plans for 6,900 acres of National Forest lands and providing for future trail opportunities on Blacktail Mountain, west of Lakeside.

“There’s a lot of work that went into those documents,” Kehr, the District Ranger at Swan Lake Ranger District in Bigfork, said Monday.

With the plans having been vetted by the public through National Environmental Policy Act planning, chainsaws are now buzzing and logging trucks are hauling timber on Blacktail Mountain. The Wild Cramer forest project will manage about 6,900 acres of forest management over the next three to five years on Blacktail Mountain through precommercial thinning, prescribed fire and commercial harvest. Logging is underway on two of three planned sales in the project area. The first two timber sales were awarded to Stoltze Land and Lumber and Quiram Logging. About 25 million board feet of timber will be harvested through the Wild Cramer project. With annual timber harvest on the Flathead National around 27 million board feet, the timber to be harvested on Blacktail is a significant portion of the timber program in the next few years. With logging underway, several large slash piles have already been accumulated on the Wild Cramer project. Kehr said he had hoped that this slash could have been used for biomass fuels, but with low petroleum prices “that market just isn’t there.”  About 150 acres are planned to be harvested within the boundaries of Blacktail Mountain ski area to generate healthy timber stands and enhance the ski area. Kehr said this thinning is being done to address a lodgepole forest that is unhealthy within the ski area.  Kehr oversees management of Swan Lake Ranger District, which includes the 46,000-acre Blacktail Island Unit — an area of Flathead National Forest lands that stands alone from any other contiguous U.S. Forest Service property. The Island Unit is on the outskirts of Lakeside and Kalispell. Planning projects on the Island Unit involves diverse interests ranging from cross-country skiers to hikers, off-road recreationists, downhill skiers, local residents and timber interests.

New motorized and non-motorized recreation trails are being developed as part of the Wild Cramer plan. The Lakeside to Blacktail non-motorized trail opened last summer, including a new trailhead, and work continues on the National Forest segment of the Foys-to-Blacktail Trail. New motorized trails were constructed with the help of motorized recreation clubs to provide loop opportunities from the Wild Bill Trail.  The Wild Bill Trailhead was also reconstructed this past summer.   

This winter, planning will start for a project that was awarded funding through a Federal Highway grant last year and will consider restoration of the Blacktail Mountain Road.

Development of the Island Unit Trails Addition was planned with the help of the Island Unit Trails Collaborative. The group includes multiple recreation interests, including some of the appellants who were initially against the Island Unit plan. Kehr said the groups representing off-road motorized users have been instrumental in the collaborative process of developing new trails, as well as partnering with the Forest Service on maintenance projects. The off-road groups have helped with trail signage, toilet maintenance, weeds abatement and enforcement of rules. “The clubs have been fantastic to work with,” Kehr said. “Engagement with the trail system creates a sense of ownership by the recreation groups.”

A diverse group of people have provided opinions and feedback on the Blacktail Mountain logging and recreation projects. The trailhead for the Blacktail Mountain cross-country ski area, which is maintained by the North Shore Nordic Club, will likely be relocated to accommodate more parking. The new trailhead will likely serve as the off-road trailhead during the summer months upon completion of planned trails in the Island Unit Trails Addition decision, Kehr said.

The approved Island Unit Trails Addition plan calls for about 61 miles of off-road motorized use. Kehr said adding off-road recreation opportunities may help reduce illegal off-road use that is occurring elsewhere on Flathead National Forest, especially on Crane Mountain near Bigfork. Areas near the Jewel Basin in Bigfork are also seeing illegal off-road use. “If we develop a trail system with meaningful riding opportunities at Blacktail, maybe we can discourage some of that unauthorized use,” Kehr said. “With the Blacktail Island Unit system we have a legitimate, managed system for people to ride trails.”

The Bug Creek planning project next year will address some of the illegal activity on Crane Mountain, including off-road trail use and illegal timber cutting. Kehr toured the area this summer and said he “was shocked” to see the illegal activity on Crane Mountain. One forest user blazed a road to access unauthorized timber harvest. “We have to get a handle on that,” he said. “We need to engage the public on management of their national forest.”

In 2012 Kehr submitted an application for federal funding to address Blacktail Mountain Road. The project “competed very well” and was awarded up to $6 million in earmarked funds. The alternatives outlined for the road range from doing minimal upkeep by the Forest Service, to paving the roughly 12 miles up to Blacktail Mountain ski area. National Environmental Policy Act review of the project will be done through a contract with a private company in Billings. He said he thinks the study should be finished and restoration work could begin on the road in 2017. (About 1.2 miles were paved this summer under the grant by Flathead County.)

Kehr said he is glad to finally see progress on the logging, recreation and roads projects on Blacktail Mountain. “It’s starting to happen on the ground, which is nice,” Kehr said.

Managing the national forests is not as it was, say 30 years ago, when Kehr was getting his start in the Service as a civil engineer. Today’s forest planners must work in collaboration with diverse groups on multiple issues such as recreation, healthy forests and wildlife habitat.

The Swan Lake Ranger District participates in the Southwest Crown of the Continent Collaborative, a group of various interests working together on managing the ecosystem in the southern Crown of the Continent — that area from Swan Lake to Lincoln.