The Bitterroot is blessed to be surrounded by wildlands, making this a uniquely rich place to live. The blessings that flow from wildlands are hard to fully appreciate and easily taken for granted. Wildlands support our quality of life even if we never go there. Clean dependable water, wildlife diversity and immeasurable peace and inspiration flow from wildlands.
Wildlands are sacred places, precious and irreplaceable. They are continually lost and not made. Relentless exploitation for industrial and recreational use has compromised paradise on earth into a few remaining remnants.
Mountain bikers allied with snowmobilers are not satisfied with the vast landscapes where they can play but want more, and are suing to take it by challenging the recent Bitterroot Travel Plan decision to finally enforce the 1977 Wilderness Study Act.
This is as shortsighted as a mountain biker in the midst of paradise with eyes as well as arguments fixed on the trail tread. They don’t seem to see the big-picture cost of litigating access into these special places they are not allowed to ride. Heck, what’s wrong with riding a bike or snowmobile through Maulmart? And it’s not even particularly sacred? Or is it?!
The Sapphire Wilderness Study Area is a jewel protected Congressionally by Montana’s Senator Metcalf and is one of the most biologically valuable areas in the Bitterroot. It is a wildland link in a regional biological corridor providing premium value in this age of climate change due to its cooler high elevation wildland security habitat and north-south orientation offering migration north. The corridor has proven itself. Grizzly bears have wandered back to the Bitterroot from the Sapphires. A dwindling mountain goat herd and wolverines live there. The unique wildlife that live there don’t have the luxury of driving to a different trailhead. It’s life and death right there, possibly extirpation for some, like resident mountain goats and wolverines.
At a time when the peace and sensibility found in Nature as well as spiritual renewal flowing from wild country are more needed than ever, the biker-biler litigation alliance would sacrifice more of what little remains to pad their play area options.
Larry Campbell
Darby