Just outside Yellowstone National Park you'll find towering peaks, sapphire creeks, deep forests, and sunny meadows where wildlife thrive and people seek adventure.
Yellowstone National Park Custer Gallatin National Forest
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These are the Madison and Gallatin ranges. Grizzly bears, elk, and mountain goats roam between here and Yellowstone. Clean water flows from the mountains.
Fisheye Guy Photography
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These mountains provide the best of what Montana has to offer: Adventure, solitude, connection with our heritage, and the freedom to get out and enjoy the land.
Louise Johns Photography
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But nearby communities are growing and changing. With an influx of new people seeking out the Montana way of life, the mountains we love are changing too. We need to act quickly to protect this landscape and its freedoms for future generations.
Developed areas 2016
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The Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act is proposed legislation that will make sure that rivers and creeks will keep flowing clear and cold, wildlife will have room to roam, and the generations who come after us will be able to enjoy this place as much as we do.
GFP Proposal areas Existing Wilderness
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Protecting a landscape this large and important requires a community-centered approach and tailored solutions to preserve wildlife habitat, protect clean water, and ensure recreation access. By protecting 250,000 acres of land in a suite of different land-use designations designed to work together, the Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act does just that. Here’s how:
Louise Johns Photography
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The proposal will permanently protect the Hyalite Porcupine Buffalo Horn Wilderness Study Area, resolving decades of uncertainty.
Louise Johns Photography
WSA boundary
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Hyalite Canyon and Bozeman Creek are some of the most popular recreation areas in the region. They also provide 80% of Bozeman’s drinking water. The act protects these areas by prohibiting new trail construction and logging in the high alpine, and by allowing common sense timber management practices in the front country to protect the regions water supply.
Emily Cleveland
Proposed Hyaliate Watershed Protection and Recreation Area
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West Pine is a wild and relatively untravelled corner of the Gallatins. It is an important refuge for elk, deer, grizzly bears, and other wildlife as they travel north from Yellowstone National Park, and a favorite destination for local mountain bikers. The Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act preserves mountain biking on existing Forest Service trails in the area, and protects wildlife by limiting recreation to non-motorized use.
Fisheye Guy Photography
Proposed West Pine Wildlife & Recreation Management Area
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The act also improves local mountain biking opportunities and reduces back road congestion by investing in two additional trail segments in the area. The first segment will turn existing trails into a loop trail - freeing up space at trailheads and reducing back road congestion by eliminating the need for multi-car shuttles.
Emily Cleveland
Existing trails New trails
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The second trail segment opens opportunities for long-distance riding in the area. By adding these trail segments, the act improves recreation while cutting down on vehicle traffic. By limiting trail construction to these two short segments and no more, the act preserves intact wildlife habitat well into the future.
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Close to Yellowstone, the Porcupine Buffalo Horn area provides important habitat for a wide range of native species, including elk, grizzly bear, moose, bighorn sheep, and wolverine. Trail users are just as varied here, including hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, dirt bikers and snowmobilers. The act will maintain existing recreational access and protect wildlife habitat by preventing new trail construction and commercial timber harvest.
Fisheye Guy Photography
Proposed Porcupine-Buffalo Horn Wildlife & Recreation Management Area
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The mountainous Gallatin Crest is as wild as it gets. Here, at the heart of the range, people and wildlife alike enjoy space and solitude. To protect it from the pressures of a burgeoning population and ever-expanding recreation pressure, the act calls for this remote and vital core to be protected as Wilderness from Hyalite Lake to the boundary of Yellowstone National Park.
Louise Johns Photography
Proposed Wilderness
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Over in the Madison Range, the Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act expands the Lee Metcalf Wilderness by adding key areas to create a more contiguous patchwork of designations - connecting previously separate islands of protection.
Emily Cleveland
Proposed Wilderness -
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The Greater Yellowstone Conservation and Recreation Act will protect recreational access, safeguard clean drinking water, and ensure wildlife habitat is protected in two of Montana’s most iconic mountain ranges. Be part of this historic solution by endorsing the act today.
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