The pandemic chased many people out of populated cities of the U.S. and sent them seeking more rural areas of our country. Many areas of Montana were dealing with growth prior to corona, but this event exasperated an already changing population base. For those native to the state these changes can be very disturbing.

In the past Montana was a vacation destination for families wishing to enjoy nature in its finest. They came, they spent money, and they went home. With new technology and the ability to work remotely, they no longer go home. Instead they search for their own little bit of paradise right here. Many counties in Montana have had unprecedented population growth these last 2 years. This growth has been challenging for our communities to deal with, but the most distressing changes are happening in our rural landscape.

Montana historically has had numerous farms and cattle ranches. These ranches helped give this state the magical “step back in time” appeal that draws so many. Today though, these ranches get gobbled up by wealthy out of state investors. It’s easy to see the rational, as the ranch owners age and the next generation chooses not to continue with the family business, the inherently valuable ranches are sold off for enormous prices. Many of the buyers are not interested in a working ranch, but rather a private vacation retreat. Previously assessable properties for hunting, fishing or recreating are now off limits to the general public. One of the largest problems with this new wave of ranch owners is the loss of access to public land. This has been a growing issue across the west. Many thousands of acres of public lands are only accessible through private lands. Landowners have been shutting down that access for years now. Some have leased to outfitters, or outfitting themselves. Others are just shutting down all access through their property.

This population explosion has also resulted in a enormous increase in the use of front country recreation. Campgrounds have expanded and new areas have been created, but they do not seem to keep up with demand. As a result we are seeing some very distressing scenes on this pristine landscape. Close to our home there was a small primitive site where a handful of locals would camp and recreate along the Flathead River. This is not a developed site with parking spots, tables and fire pits, rather this is primitive camping where people pull in and park anywhere on the river bank. For the last couple of years this site has been inundated with newcomers. We have heard of as many as 70 units parked on the small gravel bar near the blankenship bridge. Consider the ramifications of this activity. All these vehicles parked on a high water area of the river, vehicles that are sometimes leaking fluids or other contamination that inevitably will be absorbed into the river as soon as a rain event occurs. In addition to the vehicle contamination, there are hundreds of people inhabiting this area now. All these people spreading their human waste throughout the shoreline. These situations are atrocious.an old bus repurposed for camping stuck trying to access a gravel bar

One of the most popular summer recreation activities is rafting the Flathead River. The river access sites are packed with enthusiastic floaters almost every summer day. In addition to the normal populace enjoying an outing on the river, you have numerous commercial outfitters offering raft trips. These businesses cater to the many tourists and newcomers to our state. Often in groups of six large rafts at a time, these groups create a continuous river parade coming down the river. Blue, green, yellow and red are the most often seen colors distinguishing the different commercial groups as their customers shriek with glee making their way through the white water. Members of our family enjoying a commercial rafting trip

The point of this writing is to question what is to be done to protect the most valuable resource in Montana, our public lands. Our government agencies are tasked with providing access to public lands and balancing use to prevent degradation. In so many instances these agencies (primarily the USFS) fall drastically short. The front country (areas accessable by vehicle) seems to be overwhelmed with activity. In my opinion the USFS needs to be proactive in addressing the use of these areas. These popular sites should be developed and maintained. This would allow for controlling the number of users and also would minimize contamination of the resource. Rather than allow for unlimited commercial use, the outfitters profiting from exploiting this resource should have their permit (usage) numbers capped. Outfitters provide a valuable service, but we have reached a point where the commercial aspect of this service is diminishing the appeal of this pristine river system.

Most of our activities take place in the backcountry. What I observe in these areas is equally disturbing. Our forests used to have a trail system in almost every drainage. Lack of funding for trail work has led to USFS focusing on primary routes into the backcountry and allowing secondary routes to become overgrown and impassable. With the increase of population comes an increase in backcountry use, so what we see is these primary routes getting enormous pressure. Rather than close or restrict access, our backcountry could be improved by the USFS putting additional emphasis on improving access to secondary trails. Also in many instances our public lands are completely inaccessible because of private ownership changes. In these situations our USFS should be in the forefront of the legal battle to maintain public access. Our public lands should be available for all who want to enjoy.

Although our landscape is becoming more populated, this country is still very beautiful. It’s up to us to keep it for our children to enjoy. Not to be locked out and not to be exploited by commercialism.

It is awesome to live in a place where others travel hundreds to thousands of miles to vacation and recreate. We can step out our backdoor and hike, ski or ride our horses exploring the mountain. Many other trailheads are just a short drive drive away. This winter we got sidetracked with some health issues, but by mid February I was able to venture into the backcountry again.The tunnel creek drainage is one I haven’t been up in 40 years. Snow conditions were poor so I didn’t attempt heading up in the high country, but it was still a treat to ski along this pretty creek.

The tranquil basin drainage is a popular ski destination for backcountry skiers. It has pretty significant elevation gains, but is realitively avalanche safe. I was only a few weeks following back surgery when I skied up this drainage, so I didn’t attempt to make it all the way up to the lakes.  It is a fun outing regardless and worth the effort.

From higher elevations on Teakettle mountain you get some great views of the middle fork and the north fork of the flathead river.

One of the old trails I access heading up our mountain.

Spring conditions have finally come to us up on the mountain.  Snow is melting and the water is flowing everywhere. The horses have been enjoying some beautiful sunny days lounging in the pasture. 

But they do get their leisure time interrupted for some early season rides. Not to far yet cuz they’re barefoot, but we have been riding most every day now.

It is surely a special place to call home.

Do you have stories about what you consider to be the good ole days. Last fall marked 40 years of my farming career. I look back on some of those early days with fondness. Our little community of Churchs Ferry was still healthy and  bustling. My uncle and I were busy taking care of feeder cattle and a cow/calf operation along with raising a couple thousand acres of grain crops. These were some hard working git-r-done days. 

There are many aspects of farming back in those days that I would not want to return. The old canvas tarps that we used on single axle grain trucks used to fly up in the breeze and smack you in the mouth. The grain storage was predominately steel but we still had a few old wooden granaries that were used. These were miserable to fill and to unload. Our method of unloading all the granaries was a scoop shovel and an old 6″ mayrath grain auger. Most all of the work in those days involved physical labor. I’m confident my uncle had the opinion that if a job was easy you were doing it wrong. 

But there are also many great memories of farm life during these days. We had great neighbors back then and if you had a problem they were more than happy to come lend a hand. I have memories of working in a field and my neighbor was working close and we would stop our tractors by the fenceline and enjoy a cup of coffee together. We would spend 15 minutes hashing out the worlds problems and discussing current events then bid each other good day and return to our fieldwork. These were days before environmentalists became so influential and as a farmer you took it upon yourself to be stewards of the land and animals. So often work was stopped in the field in order to go move a duck nest so that it wouldn’t be destroyed. Grain was sometimes put out to help the deer make it through a tough winter cold spell. Later wetland advocacy groups would lobby policies that were harmful to the farmer/landowner. (They always knew more than the guy in the field) Wetlands grew significantly during the 90’s and migratory waterfowl actually became a huge nuisance destroying thousands of acres of grain crops each year. 

Coffee time was a regular thing on the farm those days. 10 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon everything stopped while we opened the thermos and grabbed a cookie. Yep, the work was harder and more physical, but we also slowed down at times and just took a few moments to reflect. Seldom did we skip out on Sunday church service, maybe during harvest when rain was forecast, but worship was a priority. 

This year, my 40th year, marked the last of my full time farming career. My son Steve has been in the process of taking over operations the past few years and now will have 100%. I can’t say retiring will come easy. After you devote this much of your life into being a steward of the land it is hard to walk away. I will still return to help, but those days spent agonizing over weather, machinery, weeds, crop development, enough labor, markets, and government restrictions are over for good.

The following video was made for me by my son (Steve) in honor of my retirement year.

Connie and I purchased our property on Teakettle mountain back in 2012 and began carving out Apgar View Ranch. We now occupy our time with building and maintaining fence, clearing timber, and working with our horses. AVR is a secluded beautiful place where you have the ability to let the turmoil of so much of the world exit your mind. You get to focus on a simple life of mountains, nature and wildlife. Often our children visit and comment that they are able to just relax and recharge. 

Oh boy, today marks Connie and my 40th wedding anniversary! That is quite a milestone for a couple of high school sweethearts. Where has the time gone? It is definately hard to believe that we have been together that long. Very few couples today know what it is like to reminisce over a period of married life like that.  Reminiscing is what we were doing this morning. The trials of the first years of marriage, raising our children, growing our farm business, and finally the stage we are at now enjoying the mountains of Montana. Obviously we are proud of our accomplishment in marriage, but even more we are so proud of the children we raised. 3 very unique, beautiful, successful kids that have gone on to start wonderful families of their own. In today’s society full of turmoil and chaos, it’s kids like this that still bring hope and optimism that there is good in the world. Hard work and sacrifice are what it takes to be successful in most every aspect of life, whether it be marriage, vocation, or raising a family. So many today are not willing to sacrifice. Everyone wants instant gratification rather than to reap the rewards that only time, patience and hard work can provide. 

Imagine being able to recall, with your spouse, holiday events and experiences that you have shared a lifetime gathering. Very few today have that luxury. We are very blessed. 

This year Cody and I had a father/son elk hunt in the Gallatin Valley. Usually we have a group of from 4 to 6 guys that show up for our annual hunt, but this year Steve didn’t draw a tag and a couple of our other guys opted to try a new area.

We set up a nice tent camp on the Taylor fork access. This spot had public use corrals and the river was fairly close by for water. 

This is beautiful country to hunt elk in, unfortunately the numbers in this area have declined significantly. We had an excellent hunt regardless. We brought 4 horses and swapped them every other day, so we covered many miles searching for a nice bull. But cows were all we located this year.

Good weather, good horses and great fellowship made for an awesome hunt.

We’ve been fortunate to have 2/3’s of our family visit this summer. 5 of the grandkids got to stay after their parents headed home. What a blast they have been having! They were white water rafting, fly fishing, huckleberry picking, playing in their own playhouse, crafting with gma, a day at the water slides, and then tons of horse time.

All of the exciting activities seem to be dorfed by their love of the horses. These kids start the day grooming the horses. Then spend a little time riding in the round pen before moving out to ride in the pasture. It is so exciting to see them grow in their abilities.

But all good things come to an end. It is awesome to see the love these kids show their partners when saying goodbye. Many tears get shed.

Every year Connie wants to join me on an overnight backcountry horse trip, but she is so attached to her fur babies and she refuses to kennel Sam. Consequently she doesn’t get to go. This summer she asked her parents to dog sit and she had a blast.

It was just a short outing to a location we frequently ride. The fishing is usually great and the old elk camp setting is a nice place for an overnight.

We headed up big river trail and then branched off on long creek trail to the river. There is an old hunting camp located here. It’s around a 7 to 7.5 mile trip in.

Hopefully this was the first of many backcountry trips for her!

It’s been a very busy eventful spring at Apgar View Ranch. While I was still back in North Dakota for spring planting, Connie had some unexpected visitors. A sow grizzly and her large 2 yr old cubs decided to use our backyard for their personal playground. Somewhat unnerving for Connie and her visiting mother to have the bears that close and in our backyard twice that day. The bears did leave and were sighted about a mile down the mtn at different residences. Montana grizzly specialist was called and he investigated but didn’t take any action at that time, giving the bears a chance to move on. He did put up a game camera down by the barn to monitor any future activity.

The following week (the day I returned to the mtn) the bears also returned and spent the evening playing in a pile of manure and pine shavings that Connie had piled outside the barn. We had received about 4″ of precip and it was just to muddy for her to haul the manure out to our pasture. This time the younger bears were caught on video rolling, digging and frolicking in the pile. About 20 minutes of great grizzly video! 

The bears seemed to vacate our area after that and were seen frequently at residences down below, even sitting in someone’s lounge chair on their deck. They did get into garbage at one residence and were starting to become a concern for officials. The decision was made to attempt to trap and relocate, but at this time we have not heard of them being successful.

We decided to re-home Banjo, our beautiful bay horse who has been having some lameness issues. He is such a sweetheart, but just isn’t going to be able to make those long strenuous backcountry trips anymore. He’s heading for a dude ranch where he will get an easy job of working an hour or two per day on easy terrain. Trying to replace Banjo has been difficult. Good horses are at an all time premium price this year and it just isn’t feasible to spend the kind of money being asked. We elected to try to take on a project colt. He doesn’t have a name yet, and will stay with the sellers for the next year for training. We will get him as a 2 year old. Super good looking colt that we are excited about.

Another project we started at the ranch is site prep for a possible building location. We were hoping to construct a large building that will house a small shop and an indoor arena. When you live on a forested mountain excavating for such a large building is quite an undertaking. Our hope is to complete the site prep this year and wait until the construction chaos subsides before starting the building. Connie running the excavator

Although it’s been busy, we still have managed to get in a couple of good outings with the horses up the North Fork. It is so enjoyable to get out and give these guys some real work rather than just riding in the pasture. Dawson, our herd addition last year as a 4 yr old is working great. He has learned to handle the obstacles of mountain riding and is improving every time out. 

The North Fork is an awesome place to ride early season. Numerous old logging roads that allow you to access high elevations without worrying about soggy sloppy trails.

Time to start heading out for the next adventure!

I wrote a previous blog about backcountry skiing up Cascadilla Creek. We recently returned to this basin and were greeted with at least 4’ of additional snow. We’ve had very mild temps the last few days so the snowpack was set up and made for a much easier climb up in the basin.

This basin is gorgeous and with bluebird conditions this was probably the nicest day of skiing I’ve ever had.

Cody managed a quick trip back from Minnesota to make this outing with me. What a beautiful day we had.

Because of the great snow conditions we were able to climb up to the ridge separating crystal creek and cascadilla creek. The views from up here were superb. It took about 3 hrs for this old guy to make the trip up here, but so glad I was able to do it.

The Crystal creek basin looked like it would be fantastic for skiing down. I’ve never skied up this drainage so we didn’t attempt descending here. I’ll have to plan a trip up this drainage to see what kind of access there is.

I stopped my assent up on the ridgeline. Cody elected to skin up the ridge so that he could ski across and descend the face of the mountain.

It was a beautiful day with moderate avalanche danger. We tried to be extremely cautious about our time on the steep slopes we had to cross. Although the sun was causing numerous small slides on the surface areas, we didn’t feel we were in any significant danger as most of the bad slide areas had come down during the rain event a few weeks ago.

What a fantastic area and beautiful day. Hopefully I will get a few more outings before spring, but this one will be hard to beat.

Sometimes our adventures here at Apgar View Ranch are about the people we meet. We were fortunate to find a horse packing/camping gear business in the Flathead valley a few years ago. The business was owed by Andy Breland and his daughter Sydney. When you first meet Andy you’re definately not a stranger for long. His easy demeanor and gift of gab makes everyone feel comfortable and at ease. At this point of my horse packing skills I was pretty green. I had quite a few years of hunting the backcountry on horses and a couple of week long summer pack trips, so visiting with Andy was informational and motivating. You have to understand that it can be very intimidating to take multiple horses into the backcountry. Dealing with a flighty animal on treacherous trails with all kinds of obstacles and hazards is a recipe for disaster. Overcoming the intimidation factor is where Andy’s visits were awesome. REMEMBER! He used to say, it’s supposed to be fun! 

Andy gave up a career in the trucking industry to pursue his passion of horse/mule packing and enjoying life in the backcountry. He and his daughter opened their store to facilitate that passion. Andy packed for Forest Service support, Bob Marshall Wilderness Association, and sometimes private users. He and his packing partner Chuck logged 1000’s of miles in their packing career. Their names would be seen frequently posted as volunteer packers on excursions for the BMWA. I asked Andy why they devoted so much time volunteering for these organizations, cuz let’s face it mountain weather can quickly turn miserable. If you’re on the schedule to pack in a trail crew 16 miles to camp and it’s been raining for 3 days with no let-up in sight, you load all the gear on the stock and head out regardless. Conditions like that can be downright treacherous. Andy was the go-to-guy for many. A few years ago Connie and I were out for a drive on a rainy Saturday morning. As we passed the Bear creek trailhead there was Andy and Chuck loading stock and preparing to head up the trail. Decked out in their slickers in the pouring rain. I thought to myself “REMEMBER it’s supposed to be fun” Andy didn’t seem to mind. He was proud to get the job done.

Their business was called Trailhead Supply. I enjoyed stopping in to visit with Andy about wilderness areas, new trails, or just different issues that we encounter in the backcountry. There were very few areas he wasn’t familiar with and if he wasn’t he knew who to contact to find information needed. That was Andy’s way, willing to take the time to find answers to any question you might have. While many professional backcountry Packers will be somewhat annoyed seeing others on the trail or chastise that recreational packer for not having the proper hitch securing their loads, Andy would be one to comment “hey whatever works to get you safely down the trail”. He was exceptional at motivating and supporting all stock users to get out and enjoy this great country of ours.

Sadly Andy passed away this week following a battle with cancer. His passing will leave a tremendous void in the packing community. I always hoped for the chance to take a pack trip with this legend, but sometimes you wait to long for an opportunity to present itself. So for now Andy, we’ll see you down the trail.