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I've lived in Livingston for nearly 20 years and I know Alex, and his kids are classmates of mine. This has been big news locally for a while but interesting to see it hit the national wires.

However, I grew up in Scotland where we have a somewhat longer history of dealing with access to land and rich people ;) The solution there is that there is a legal right to access wild land. Note this doesn't just apply to "public land" but all land public or private.

http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/access/full%20code.p...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

One of the rights lost when folks moved to "the land of the free", it seems.

Same in Scandinavia

OT, but I have to imagine (as someone who has visited Livingston) that you might well be the only person to ever grow up in Scotland and live in Livingston for 20 years. Kinda interesting.

Turns out not. There are at least two true Scottish people in the Livingston area. I haven't met either one yet but I have chatted with the guy at the special order doors/windows desk in Lowes in Bozeman. He's from East Kilbride.

That solution seems so obvious, I was thinking that the whole time I read the article:

Why allow people to so zealously defend their property rights on a huge plot of land that's hundreds of acres big? It's not like you're standing in their living room.

OTOH maybe that's just my European perspective where we're used to living 'cramped' (as opposed to the vastness of the Americas).

In some cases you have to "follow the money" to understand it : the land owners are trying to make money by running a business taking people onto the public land to hunt etc. Rent Seeking.

Yes, I do a lot of walking in Scotland and its easy forget how great it is to be able to wander about pretty much wherever you want - the only restrictions being pretty sensible anyway.

I grew up in central Montana but now live on the west coast too, and I’m astonished at how quickly it’s changing. The bellwether for me is the fact that stream access law* is being challenged (most notably by Gianforte and other wealthy, often absentee landowners). If public stream access is lost, I’ll know the state and it’s civic makeup has changed irreversibly. *Everything below the high water mark is publicly accessible per Montana state law.

Gianforte is the best example of wealthy land owners blocking access. He came from out of state, got luck with his tech company when Oracle came knocking, and now he wants to pretend he is the embodiment of Montana. All the while he is more than happy to block access to others whenever he can.

Forget about being an absentee wealthy landowner. The dude chokeslammed a Guardian journalist for having the audacity to try to get him to answer some questions. Then he got elected to Congress!

This is very true, changing that law would be totally catastrophic!

> Everything below the high water mark is publicly accessible per Montana state law

Huh, does that mean you can legally travel through someone's private property by walking/wading the length of a stream that passes through it? (i.e. the stream is effectively a public footpath?)

I'm not from MT but I believe that is the correct interpretation, similiar to the laws surrounding California coastline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_Stream_Access_Law

This concept gets a fascinating and thorough exploration in the form of post-icecap-melt “intertidal” zones in KSR’s epic _NY 2140_. Picture lower Manhattan submerged at high tide. A highly recommended read.

It certainly does. You just have to enter from a public access point. This point could be as formal as a maintained fishing access or as informal as any bridge on a public thoroughfare.

You get some rich people from somewhere else who move in and throw all local culture and tradition away.

It's happening in Colorado. Every Fourteener (14,000+ foot mountains) used to be publicly accessible but we got some greedy folks who moved in and shut down that traditional access to at least five of them so far.

If I ever come into a sizable fortune my plan is to acquire these lands and turn them over to the public. I would be happy to legally harass these folks into selling as well, if that's what it took. Maybe buy up the land surrounding theirs and cut off public access.

I share your dream plan, but with the public lands transfer movement fear the Fed would one day soon turn around and sell the bequeathment for a song. It might not happen today or this decade, but public lands are not immutable.

So then I wonder if the best option is to set up some kind of management trust.

You're probably right considering that clown Zinke, who wasn't even born in Montana and doesn't appear to appreciate the real sentiments of many in the American West.

The research is clear that Community Land Trust work, for both land management and for affordable housing. We need more CLT's and Co-ops all over this country.

Just find the pharmaceuticals these greedy assholes are dependent on to stay alive, buy up the manufacturing rights, shut down production, and get rid of some of the world's problems. Could probably could get a kickstarter going, I'd donate.

I really have no expertise in this area but with the amount of lawsuits that occur these days it feels like as soon as someone was paralyzed or killed accessing this land you would be on the hook for not preventing them from accessing it. I would hope that this isn't the case but it just feels like the way thinks are going.

"They'll sue us if we're not assholes" is a common rationalization/excuse from assholes. Every time I've done a deep dive on one of these (only a few times, not a lawyer) I've found them to be a complete fabrication and on one occasion the actual inverse of the truth, in that the activity being rationalized was in fact illegal.

I'm sure there are plenty of cases where the claim is legitimate, but there are more than plenty where it's not.

That is a shame. I think Culebra Peak has always been private access. At least it when I was bagging them back in the 1990's. What are the other four that are problematic now?

Like to know too - considering I visited them all just this past summer.

"You get some rich people from somewhere else who move in and throw all local culture and tradition away."

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

There are many historical examples of cultures murdering and taking over areas from the traditional inhabitants. Even the current Native Americans apparently killed off/supplanted earlier peoples.

Anyways, the tradition of access to the open range extends back to the indigenous Americans who didn't necessarily possess the concept of owning land or fencing it, so I think that weakens that argument.

    It's happening in Colorado. Every Fourteener (14,000+ 
    foot mountains) used to be publicly accessible
    but we got some greedy folks who moved in and shut 
    down that traditional access to at least five of them so 
    far.

Which ones? I just did all the 14ers this year, and didn't have problems with access to any. (Culebra was one I paid for a reservation)

Culebra has always been the problematic one but I guess I am quite behind the times after I've checked the current situation. Culebra is only open one week a year from when I checked last year.

Lincoln, Bross, Democrat and Cameron had their access blocked in 2005 by people who acquired land via old mining claims. It appears a happy impasse has since been reached with the town of Alma leasing the land and taking on the risk of litigation, which is limited by the town's governmental immunity.

So it was only a temporary blocking, but I guess I'm still unhappy it occurred at all.

> Culebra is only open one week a year from when I checked last year

In 2017, it was open for dates in June and July you could reserve in June and July. Normally, it's also opened in August, but they've closed it for wildlife reasons. But this is a different situation than what the fine article is about - Culebra Peak isn't public land blocked by private land; it's just private land itself. It's been private land before the National Forest and the Dept. of the Interior were a thing.

Access to Mt. Democrat/etc has been open since 2012. Only Bross remains closed. The closure in total is a sign saying, "summit closed". Again, different from the article where private land is blocking public access.

Many other 14ers are actually on private land, but access is not limited. Lindsey is one example - it resides almost completely in the Trinchera Ranch, which was just sold. But there is a conservation easement to Colorado Open Lands as part of the sale of the ranch - you can't develop on the land, and access to the summit is allowed from the Huerfano Valley.

Mt. Shavano's summit is also on private land as well, but the mining claim was bought recently by the CFI, and will be transferred to the NF soon.

http://www.14ers.org/mount-shavano-private-lands-acquisition...

From my experiences, easy access of public land is actually really good in Colorado. I'm sure there are issues, but they seem at least to me minimal in most of the popular areas, like 14ers.

Have you heard of the Access Fund? They help work out access issues for climbers. They mainly deal with rock climbing issues but might do other stuff as well. They have been successful negotiating with property owners in the past. They sometimes even buy land to ensure access forever.

I live in CO and climb but don't do much mountaineering. Is anyone working on this issue? I'm shocked this has happened because climbing 14ers is one of the most authentically Coloradan things one can do.

>Perhaps, I can write a geat Montana story about a forrest service ranger, who leads a double life cutting fences, torching wasteful mansions and getting into conflicts with poachers, extractors, and rich asshole "rancher" and developers.

This brings to mind Edward Abbey's book The Monkey Wrench Gang. I can't recommend his books enough, especially Desert Solitaire.

Yeah, I've read and enjoyed both!

That story is called "Longmire" and its on netflix except it's WY not MT.

Cool, I will check it out.

I spent a few years in West Yellowstone before also ending up on the west coast. I miss the area dearly, and the idea of being able to find a good tech gig in Bozeman seems to be more real every year. But then I feel like I'd only contribute to the erosion of what makes it a great... At least I've been able to fly directly into West Yellowstone now?

tech per se isn't the main force killing MT, or the west, it's mostly our values that are.

Which values? Can you expand a little? I have guesses, but would like to hear from you.

I'm actually working on a solar punk book about this topic too, hehe. It can be hard to articulate but the word that does it best is "wetiko". No book has impacted me more in my worldview in the last three years than, "Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism" by Jack D. Forbes, a native professor who started the first Native American Studies Program.

If you read only one single book this year, please read this small powerful book. On a personal note, my father didn't teach me much very much technically, or set the greatest example, but he did share his love of Montana, Flyfishing, the rivers and the mountains with me when I was young and I'm forever be grateful to him for that (even if he kind of an asshole). He taught me to respect nature, and leave no trace, values that he learned from my grandfather when they went on Sierra Club trips together. I spent 17 amazing years in Montana, some of the very best of my life and I hear it calling me back. I'm getting a bit emotional as I type this, but even if it takes humanity a while to articulate it exactly, and much will be left unspoken, we know what is missing, we feel it deep down, and no amount of tech or money will ever fill that void. We need to move in harmony with the natural world and each other "be in right relations" as many first nations people call it. It will take time, be more than anything it will take some soul searching and courage.

I'll be reading this book, thanks for the recommendation.