Neighbors petition against Blankenship camp

Blankenship area residents have started a petition drive, asking the Flathead National Forest to close a de facto campground on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River at Blankenship Bridge to overnight camping.

“We, the property owners and residents of the Blankenship neighborhood, hereby request that the Blankenship Road Bridge/Flathead River gravel bar be closed to overnight camping and designated day use only. The risk of catastrophic wildfire emanating from illegal campfires and fireworks of overnight campers, as well as the difficulty of an effective response by a fire department to a wildfire, mandate this request. In addition, the overnight camping has resulted in large amounts of human waste washing into the Flathead River and Flathead Lake each spring. The current use of this Wild and Scenic River site for camping is a serious threat to our forest, homes, and properties. The Flathead National Forest should take responsibility and act by closing the gravel bar to overnight camping,” the online petition states.

As of presstime, 58 people had signed the petition. A separate, hard copy petition, had more than 200 signatures.

Last summer the site surged in popularity, with as many as 40 individual hard sided campers on the gravel bar along the Wild and Scenic River a night. With the pandemic raging across the U.S., people took to domestic travel for vacations and sites that were free were quick to gain attention on social media.

But the site has no formal toilet facilities, though the county has a pit toilet just to the north on the other side of the road. The Forest Service did bring in portable toilets, M.J. Crandall, Hungry Horse/Glacier View District recreation leader said in an interview last week. They also enforced a three-night stay limit, which are the rules under dispersed campground sites.

Crandall said the Forest Service is looking at its options for the site this summer, though the Forest hasn’t committed to closing the site to camping.

Last summer the Forest increased patrols and required use of fire pads for campfires. But with

Glacier National Park closing its campgrounds due to the pandemic and lack of staff, the squeeze was put on Forest Service sites.

Blankenship was not alone — people camped in just about every pullout they could find, particularly along the Hungry Horse Reservoir, where people would set up tents along the main roads.

“Blankenship was a microcosm across the Forest,” Crandall noted.

Pandemic or not, locals have had enough.

“It was a fiasco and it’s destroying the tenor of neighborhood,” resident Ed Smith said. “I can’t go down there and walk my dog anymore.” The Middle Fork of the Flathead at Blankenship is protected under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. But that section is considered “recreational” under the law. Recreational use under the act is defined as “those rivers or sections

of rivers that are readily accessible by road or railroad, that may have some development along their shorelines, and that may have undergone some impoundment or diversion in the past.”

That gives the Forest Service some leeway in management, Crandall noted. For example, they could allow walk-in camping only, or limit the number of campers using vehicles.

The site at Great Northern Flats on the North Fork of the Flathead also allows for dispersed camping, but it has pull-in sites and there are a limited number of them. The Blankenship site, however, is completely undeveloped save for a badly rutted service road from the bridge. The rest of it is simply gravel — built up by the river when the water gets high each spring.

In the longterm, Crandall noted, the Blankenship camp and other problems will likely be addressed in the Comprehensive River Management plan for the three forks of the Flathead, a document that is still in progress.

Meanwhile, Crandall encouraged people concerned about the use at Blankenship to contact district ranger Rob Davies at 387-3800 or by email at robert.davies@usda.gov The link to the petition is here.

Crandall said the Forest Service will likely have a decision by early May.