REAL HORSEPOWER: Back Country Horsemen

Montana Back Country Horsemen has long been known for investing sweat equity in clearing wilderness trails, and now is taking a renewed interest in protecting those trails and riding areas from poorly managed off-road vehicles.

Back Country Horsemen (BCH) is a group of dedicated horseback riders whose mission is to perpetuate the commonsense use of horses and pack stock in back country, wilderness and roadless areas through public education and mobilization. BCH assists government and private agencies in maintaining our public resources and works to ensure that public lands remain open to recreational stock use.

BCH started in the early 1970s in response to increased restrictions on horse use in the Montana backcountry. A few far-sighted horsemen organized to represent the interests of saddle and pack stock users. They felt that to be credible and effective, the organization must work in cooperation with the public land agencies that make and administer backcountry policy. They also felt the need to educate the equine community to become better stewards of the land. Since then, BCH has expanded to 20 states and became a nationwide organization, Back Country Horsemen of America.

BCH members believe that continued horse use, in harmony with the capacity of our public lands, is in the best interest of the majority of Americans. BCH promotes “Leave No Trace” skills. They offer their time and equipment to government agencies for such tasks as packing out trash, clearing, building and improving trails, building trailhead facilities, and assisting in planning strategies to benefit both horsemen and non-horsemen. Volunteers contributed 650,000 service hours, valued at $12 million, over six years.

Now, many horsemen recognize a new threat to the backcountry they love. In March 2007 at the Back Country Horsemen of Montana annual convention in Lewistown, they overwhelmingly passed a resolution submitted by the Selway-Pintler Wilderness BCH regarding off-road vehicle reform.

The recommendations were as follows:

1. Designate roads and routes for off-road vehicle travel through both site-specific and landscape analysis and public comment under the National Environmental Policy Act. Renegade roads/routes created by users without authorization will be closed until full analysis is completed to determine whether they can be designated without endangering forest health, environmental values, public safety and/or the experience of other users. Renegade roads/routes that will be permanently closed must be restored and,
2. Protect traditional foot/horse trails from motorized use: ORVs may only travel on roads and ORV routes designated in a public planning process and engineered for motorized travel and,
3. Authorize off-road vehicle use only in a manner that protects natural resources, environmental values (e.g. quiet, landscape character), public safety and the experience of other forest users and,
4. Authorize off-road vehicle use only on those routes that the agency can afford to monitor, enforce and maintain and,
5. Prohibit the use of off-road vehicles in wilderness quality lands such as roadless/unroaded areas, wilderness study areas and proposed wilderness study areas as well as areas where motorized use has or likely will create conflicts with traditional pack and saddle use and,
6. Review any proposals put forth by BCHM or affiliated chapters to reclaim pack and saddle trails (e.g. those that have been trespassed on by off-road vehicles and subsequently abandoned by horsemen) with the intention to build, re-build or convert from roads to pack & saddle trails and,
7. Create a consistent set of minimum off-road vehicle enforcement, monitoring and maintenance standards that all National Forests must meet, while allowing individual forests to develop or maintain more protective measures and,
8. Forests should adopt a stopgap enforcement strategy that puts responsibility for lawful driving and riding on the individual. Specifically, we recommend that forests establish an “unauthorized use threshold” for all routes. Once the unauthorized use threshold is reached, the route or area would be permanently or provisionally closed to motor vehicle use. For example, should riders stray more that once from a stable route that is near a sensitive wetland, the agency should indefinitely deny future motorized use of the route. An unauthorized use threshold would provide riders incentive to follow the rules, and would create an incentive for self-policing among riders.

For more information about BCH, visit www.backcountryhorse.com.