Business idea: Charge a fare to take people into the federal land via helicopter loudly flying over private land.
Probably cheaper to try and quietly buy just enough blocking land to create a road in, and then bequeath it to a foundation.
The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
101–110 of 177 posts
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine it is, but they put up the signs on the fences on both sides of the road, which is their property and it is illegal to trespass. IANAL, but on undeveloped land in the US you have to put up 'no trespassing' signs generally before enforcing people not to trespass on your land. I reality the ranchers(in reality they are usually rich sport ranchers that live in a city and recently bought the property) don't eve…
Assuming a 'no trespassing sign.' Closed gate with no lock, can't pass. Closed gate with locked lock, can't pass. Closed gate with unlocked lock, can pass.
"Closed gate with unlocked lock, can pass." Never seen one of those.
Usually a cattle guard means no gate at all.
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#103I grew up in Livingston MT just a 20 min drive from the Crazies, I know these trails, and this is one if the saddest things I have ever read on HN. Now I live on the West coast but I miss Montana all the time and visit whenever I can. To be honest, I really can't fathom how terrible things have gotten politically with the likes of the despicably corrupt Zinke and Gioforte. Personally, I watched everything change so f…
You get some rich people from somewhere else who move in and throw all local culture and tradition away. It's happening in Colorado. Every Fourteener (14,000+ foot mountains) used to be publicly accessible but we got some greedy folks who moved in and shut down that traditional access to at least five of them so far. If I ever come into a sizable fortune my plan is to acquire these lands and turn them over to the pub…
That is a shame. I think Culebra Peak has always been private access. At least it when I was bagging them back in the 1990's. What are the other four that are problematic now?
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other than using the federal lands more _and_ contacting your representatives (via phone!!) to express your support for keeping public federal lands, yes, donate. While your money probably won't be ill-spent with your run-of-the-mill environmental groups, I'd really recommend searching out right-leaning groups that support public federal lands, like the American Conservation Coalition ( https://acc.eco ). Sadly, the…
Why do you recommend seeking out right-leaning groups?
warning - generalizations ahead
Progressives tend to already support/buy in to conservation issues, so reaching and tapping In to the political right is where you can get the most bang for your buck.
The obvious question is why can’t other groups reach the conservative environmentalists? Some progressive leaning environmentalist groups embrace ideals which can be at odds with conservative views, while only being tangential to important things like wilderness conservation. Some progressive leaning environmental groups use ‘evil conservatives’ as a fund raising meme. Some simply identify as progressive and don’t leave any room for conservatives.
Truth is, in a huge chunk of this great nation, the people that enjoy, visit, and use national wilderness the most are conservative. They’re hunters and multi-generation farmers and ranchers. Sure, one of them might leave a beer bottle on the ground behind their skyjacked F250, but if they caught you poaching a doe out of season there’d be hell to pay.
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you ever communicate your frustrations on that first point to your local representatives? Seems like there could be softened regulations for certain situations to ease maintenance - e.g., like-for-like maintenance. If there's a sealed road, you can re-seal potholes without any more than advance notice. If it's unsealed, you can regrade it. But if you want to adjust the route or seal an unsealed road, the process…
Local representatives don’t get to counter the almighty EPA, which writes and enforces all of the environmental regulations affecting this kind of thing.
Sure, but they have some influence with the EPA. They will at least be able to get a meeting with someone reasonably high up at the EPA and if that fails they can introduce legislation to force the EPA to change the regulations.
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it does suck. You are taking "locals" a bit too literally. It is just a social convention and these are small communities, it is generally understood that unless the property owner has socialized something different, those signs are for mining companies, yahoos from the city, etc. A lot of times if you are not from the area, you can often ask one of the local people the purpose of a sign in some area based on wh…
I'd share your frustrating with mining companies, but is "yahoos from the city" a bit unfair? Your country has brilliant appreciation of the outdoors, including city-dwellers who travel out on weekends or holidays. Signage that informs and guides them rather than bars them might help. I imagine 99% of people just want to pass through carefully rather than dump trash or graffiti anything.
Guidance is really the job of the parks services. The problems come when the burdens get thrust upon the landowners.
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the Sierra Club only opposed mtn biking in designated Wilderness Areas, which only make up 36M out of 192M NFS acerage.[0] (That's 145,000 km^2 out of 780,000 km^2) Those areas really should just be left alone as much as possible. The White Mountain National Forest doesn't even like expanding or maintaining the leantos in much of their Wilderness Areas, so it's not like…
They've been pretty consistently anti MTB over the years. There are absolutely wilderness areas where there should not be bikes, but it should be decided locally, just as certain trails outside of wilderness areas are, justly, hiker only. For instance, this is a Wilderness area east of Bend, Oregon. It is not, however a "wilderness" - indeed many of the trails are former jeep roads: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.00…
Give me bikes over horses every day. Not sure exactly why hiking in a bit of horseshit, here and there, bothers me so much. I think it mostly is that I imagine that when you are on a horse you are much higher off the trail and don't have to deal with the stink your horse created.
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#108This is a complicated topic. I used to own the lower part of a mountain valley (out west but not in Montana). There were two dirt "roads" into the valley, both immediately against the titled property; the rest of the valley was Federal (BLM) land encircled by mountains that were effectively impassable. Americans generally have a right to use and temporarily occupy these Federal lands without permission, so if I put u…
Thank you posting this. It really gives some context about how rural western folks think that I never really appreciated in past dealings.
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#109This is a complicated topic. I used to own the lower part of a mountain valley (out west but not in Montana). There were two dirt "roads" into the valley, both immediately against the titled property; the rest of the valley was Federal (BLM) land encircled by mountains that were effectively impassable. Americans generally have a right to use and temporarily occupy these Federal lands without permission, so if I put u…
I am sympathetic to these problems. Do you think spot fixes could resolve it for good, e.g. sharing road maintenance with the Feds, or does a larger paradigm shift come to mind?
The upside of bureaucracies is that they are pretty consistent. The downside is that change is impossible.
Re: The fight over preserving public land takes a twist in Montana’s mountains
#110This is a complicated topic. I used to own the lower part of a mountain valley (out west but not in Montana). There were two dirt "roads" into the valley, both immediately against the titled property; the rest of the valley was Federal (BLM) land encircled by mountains that were effectively impassable. Americans generally have a right to use and temporarily occupy these Federal lands without permission, so if I put u…
Interesting topic. Could you talk a bit about the state laws that regulate incorporation? For instance, depending on the state, could you incorporate and then ask the state for assistance in requesting authority to maintain the federal roads? Also, how is federal ownership of the land different from if a private entity owned it? If the roads were privately owned, would you still run into the same issues?