Get Involved to Protect the Custer Gallatin National Forest Today!
The Custer Gallatin National Forest stretches across 3.2 million acres of public land from West Yellowstone, Montana to Camp Crook, South Dakota. The Custer Gallatin is home to Montana’s highest peaks, wild whitewater from the Gallatin River to Big Timber Creek, and world-class ice climbing in Hyalite Canyon. Opportunities for mountain biking, rock climbing, backcountry skiing, and hiking are also abundant across the forest.
The Custer Gallatin is in close proximity to one of the fastest growing communities in the country – Bozeman – and the outdoor recreation opportunities the forest provides are a major reason people move to the area. The Custer Gallatin is also an integral part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. There are few other places in the country where world-class outdoor recreation opportunities overlap with a landscape as wild, and intact, as the Custer Gallatin.
The Forest Service is currently in the early stages of planning for how it will manage these areas and activities for the next 20-30 years. At stake are things like recreation access, infrastructure development and maintenance, trails, scenic viewsheds, permitting for guides, outfitters and educational groups, wilderness designations, and the possibility of new scenarios for stewardship and forest partnerships. It is also an opportunity to balance growing populations and increasing recreation use with the forest's important ecological benefits.
Outdoor Alliance is working on this forest plan with our partners at Outdoor Alliance Montana. But we need your help to make sure that the interests of human-powered recreationists—skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, paddlers, hikers—are well represented as this plan is developed.
For more information and links to planning documents check out Forest Service’s planning information page. Or sign up below to get involved, and we will send you up-to-the-minute guidance about how to make a difference.
Resources
Learn about our Custer Gallatin success story by clicking above.
Learn more about the economic influence of outdoor recreation in the Custer Gallatin National Forest by clicking on the image above.
Learn more about OA Montana’s vision for the Custer Gallatin National Forest by clicking the image above.
Maps of OA Montana’s vision for the Custer Gallatin National Forest.
Latest News
Top photos by Hunter Day Photography. Bottom right photo by Anya Bean.
Today, Outdoor Alliance is releasing a story that explores how the outdoor community worked to build consensus during the forest plan revision process on the Custer Gallatin National Forest in Montana.