Mon­tana

• About 16 mil­lion of Montana’s 94 mil­lion acres (about 17 per­cent) are U.S. For­est Ser­vice Lands.

• Of the 16 mil­lion acres of pub­lic lands, about 6.4 mil­lion acres are inven­to­ried road­less areas or about 40 per­cent of U.S. For­est Ser­vice lands are roadless.

• Only 4.9 per­cent of U.S. For­est Ser­vice Lands are rec­om­mended for wilderness

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 Spot­light on the Big Belt Mountains

The Big Belt Moun­tains prox­im­ity to Helena, Butte and Boze­man makes it a pop­u­lar recre­ation area, not just dur­ing hunt­ing sea­son but through­out the year. Located in the cen­ter of this range is the Mount Baldy Road­less Area with its name­sake moun­tain ris­ing to 8,900 feet, mak­ing it the third high­est peak in the Big Belt Mountains.

 

Up Close

The Big Belt Moun­tains are located in the Helena National For­est, east of Canyon Ferry Lake near Townsend. Run­ning north-to-south, the Big Belts are pop­u­lar with hunters, horse­men, hik­ers and anglers. At more than 16,000 acres, the Mount Baldy Road­less Area strad­dles the spine of the Big Belts, mak­ing this a head­wa­ters area for two dif­fer­ent water­sheds. While about half of the road­less area is rec­om­mended for wilder­ness des­ig­na­tion, the remain­ing lands have not been afforded this level of pro­tec­tion. There has also been an inter­est in oil and gas resources in the Big Belts, with leases being sold near the south­ern bound­ary of the Mount Baldy Road­less Area.

 

Hunt­ing

The Mount Baldy Road­less Area is divided between two hunt­ing dis­tricts, 391 and 446. The reg­u­la­tions for both of these areas offer oppor­tu­ni­ties for hunt­ing elk and mule deer with over-the-counter licenses. Ample pub­lic lands, much of it superb elk habi­tat, make the Big Belts a pop­u­lar area dur­ing Montana’s five-week gen­eral hunt­ing season.

 

Fish­ing

The Big Belt Moun­tains are also home to native West­s­lope cut­throat trout, with pop­u­la­tions found in streams flow­ing from the Mount Baldy Road­less Area. In addi­tion to native trout, the head­wa­ter lands pro­tected by the road­less area help to pro­vide cool, clean water down­stream to two of Montana’s most pop­u­lar trout rivers, the Mis­souri River on the west side of the range and the Smith River to the east.

Con­tacts: