Logging near Jewel Basin raises concerns

An environmental group has raised concerns about a proposed logging project near two trails that run through state-owned lands below Jewel Basin.

The state has proposed allowing F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. to harvest about 250,000 board feet of timber near the Broken Leg and Crater Notch trails. The trails leave Jewel Basin Road and run through state lands before heading up the mountainside to the protected hiking area.

Stoltze has plans for a thinning project on land it owns adjacent to the state land. The company approached the state about thinning trees on state lands as well, according to Dave Poukish, unit manager for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

The project would target beetle-killed Douglas fir trees. If approved, the project would leave about 8 to 10 trees per acre, Poukish said.

The Swan View Coalition, however, claims the logging project will harm the area and the character of the trails.

“No matter how careful the job, using feller-bunchers and grapple skidders to remove trees on these steep hillsides will damage the character of these trail experiences for decades to come,” Swan View Coalition chairman Keith Hammer claimed in a letter to area newspapers.

Poukish said the logging would take place in winter to minimize impacts to the trail.

But Hammer maintains that the DNRC in the past has moved timber sales in the area for aesthetic reasons.

“DNRC in 2006 agreed to protect the recreational and aesthetic values of these trails by moving its Foothills Timber Sale clearcuts downhill and out of sight of the trails,” he said. “So we are surprised to see this logging proposal focus precisely on these trail corridors.”

DNRC is taking public comments on the project until Oct. 20 by e-mailing forester Nick Aschenwald at naschenwald@mt.gov.