Pacific Trail talk spurs residents' passions

Montana’s Environmental Quality Council met on Sept. 25 to discuss a number of pressing concerns in the Libby area, including the Pacific Northwest Trail.

The Trail is lightly used, with about 100 thru-hikers traversing the 1,200-mile trail that extends from the Pacific Ocean at Olympic National Park to the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park.

Congress designated the Trail as a National Scenic Trail in 2009 and identified U.S. Forest Service as the administering agency.

The contention of the Trail pertains to a section of it that takes hikers through threatened grizzly bear habitat in the Cabinet/Yaak wilderness.

Other than Alaska, there are few places in the lower 48 that provide expansive amounts of untrammeled wilderness that can sustain grizzly populations. The Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem is one of those places.

In August, “On behalf of the Yaak Valley’s last 25 grizzly bears,” the Yaak Valley Forest Council filed an injunction against the Forest Service for failure to comply a comprehensive management plan, as well as provide an advisory council.

Robyn King, executive director of the Yaak Valley Forest Council, said going forward with working with the Forest Service, “I’m hoping that we can hit the reset button on the process.”

Members of the nonprofit organization addressed the Environmental Quality Council about potential irreparable implications to the small population of grizzlies if the current route persists.

The Yaak Valley Forest Council endorses changing the route to trek further south, away from core grizzly habitat.

According to the Pacific Northwest Trail Association, the trail is mostly unmarked and unmaintained, directing trail users to, “be aware that in some locations, the route of the PNT requires bushwhacking through dense forest, following climbers’ scrambling routes, and sometimes follows networks of unsigned and confusing forest roads.”

The proposed change would route the Trail directly through Libby and Troy, providing a pit stop for hikers that the Yaak Valley Forest Council thinks will economically benefit the community, calling it a “win-win.”

Mark Peck, Lincoln County commissioner, countered that “it’s not a win-win.” Peck stressed the perspective of timber management. “This trail comes with a half-a-mile restricted corridor on either side of it,” he said. “What that means is that for every mile of trail, there is 640 acres that’s going to go unmanaged.”

Gwen Allen, owner of the Yaak River Tavern and Mercantile disagreed with the Yaak Valley Forest Council about economic gains for the community. Allen said her business served 40 Trail thru-hikers this year, with most stopping in July and August. Many of the hikers use The Mercantile to send their re-supply packages.

“These hikers, 90 percent of the time, if not more than that don’t have a whole lot of money on them,” she said. If a hiker spends more than $20 it’s surprising, “and it’s not for lack of things to buy.”

Allen added that rerouting the trail will “hurt me more than it will help Libby or Troy.”

King thinks all the stakeholders involved can find common ground. “In Lincoln County, we know how to fight really well,” she said. “But over the last 10 years, we have learned how to put our swords down at the door and work together.”

Representative Steve Gunderson closed the session by saying, “I believe we put the cart before the horse.”

Gunderson suggested more public input and further information be collected about the potential unintended consequences of the PNT.