Trails, timber, fishing pier all wrapped into Hungry Lion project
A lynx and kit pause in the Emery Creek Road.
The Flathead National Forest is proposing a timber, wildlife and trails project around Lion Lake and the Coram Experimental Forest.
The Hungry Lion project would cover a swath of land from Coram up the east side of the Hungry Horse Reservoir to Hungry Horse Creek.
Included in the proposed project is between 9 and 4.3 million board feet of timber harvest, restoration of about 12 miles of historic trails, and about 759 acres of prescribed burns on the south-facing slopes above Emery Creek adjacent to the Great Bear Wilderness.
One of the larger thinning units is on the Coram Experimental Forest near Abbot Creek — an area that hasn’t seen much timber harvest because of the experimental forest designation. The Hungry Horse-Glacier View ranger district first had a public meeting on the project last December. Now it has developed three alternatives. One alternative calls for 9 million board feet of timber harvest, 6.7 miles of temporary roads, 12.1 miles of historic trail restoration, and 1.4 miles of re-routing the Emery Creek road away from the stream.
A second alternative rehabs all the historic trails, creates 2.8 miles of temporary roads, and harvests about 6.2 million board feet of timber. The third alternative calls for 4.3 million board feet of timber, but no temporary roads, though it does add 12.1 miles of trail back into the system.
Hungry Horse/Glacier View District Ranger Rob Davies said last week the project would take about three to five years to complete.
The trails — one near Lion Lake up Lion Hill and another that runs up Desert Mountain — are already being used by the public for mountain biking, horse riding and hiking. Davies said the Forest just wants to improve them and bring them formally into its trail system.
The project also looks to plant blister-rust-resistant white pine stands in the Emery Creek drainage. Davies said the Forest is also proposing a fishing pier out into Lion Lake.
The Forest Service will have a field trip on the project at 9 a.m. July 26 at the North Lion Lake day use area to discuss the project with members of the public and answer questions that they might have as they prepare their comments.
More than 100 people commented on the project when it was first proposed in December.
The environmental assessment is available online at www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=50134.
To find out more about the project and the field trip, contact Sarah Canepa, project team leader, at the Hungry Horse/Glacier View Ranger Station, (406) 387-3800.