Public asked to collaborate on Krause Basin recreation plan

Flathead National Forest officials are seeking public participants for a collaborative project that will focus on developing a recreation management strategy for the Krause Basin area in the Swan Lake Ranger District.

The agency released the call for public input in a news release Wednesday in which officials explained that project participants will provide recommendations to the agency and "should be committed to building consensus and demonstrate the ability for collaborative decision-making."

The subject area includes Krause Basin and Peter's Ridge, a large swath of land located east of Foothill Road and southwest of Strawberry Mountain in the Swan Mountain Range. And according to Forest Service officials, the agency has experienced an increase in demand for recreational opportunities in the area.

Flathead National Forest spokeswoman Beth Pargman said national forests and grasslands received 168 million visits in 2020 — an increase of 18 million when compared to 2019. And the Swan Valley area, she explained, is no exception.

Krause Basin has the potential for "some development in the form of trailheads, trail markers and trail signing," the release states. Possible motorized and non-motorized activities include hiking, biking, horseback riding, off-highway vehicle use, Nordic skiing and snowmobiling.

According to Pargman, trails that exist in Krause Basin already have a seasonal designation, which allows certain motorized vehicles to access the trails during specified months of the year. The area is also open to over-snow vehicles — defined by Pargman as a "motor vehicle that is designated for use over snow and that runs on a track and/or a ski or skis, while in use over snow" — for roughly four months.

KRAUSE BASIN as a whole was identified in the Flathead National Forest's Management Plan as a "focused recreation area."

The plan, which serves as a guiding document for managing Forest Service lands, states focused recreation areas "would accommodate existing, as well as additional recreation growth and are intended to benefit local economies by having robust recreation settings that are responsive to changing conditions and changing use patterns and demands."

The management plan highlights roughly 20 other recreation areas throughout the Flathead National Forest system. Aside from Krause Basin, others identified within the Swan Valley area are Camp Misery Trailhead, Holland Lake Campground, Swan Lake Campground and Crane Mountain, an area near Bigfork that has become the focal point for a separate project focused on expanding recreational offerings.

THE FOREST Service is in the process of finalizing plans for a large-scale undertaking near Crane Mountain known as the "Bug Creek Integrated Resource Management Project." The entire project area is approximately 36,000 acres, though commercial and non-commercial forest treatments are expected to unfold on roughly 4,600 acres of that.

Aside from reducing the potential for wildfires in the area through various vegetation treatments, one of the main focuses of Bug Creek — similar to the pending Krause Basin project — is to provide for more recreational opportunities near Bigfork.

An environmental assessment of Bug Creek, which has received a fair amount of backlash from conservation groups in recent months, states "the need for specified motorized and non-motorized opportunities is due to increasing visitor use in the Bigfork, Swan Lake and Crane Mountain areas." The document also points to a 24% increase in visitor usage across the forest area from 2010 to 2015 — a trend Forest Service officials anticipate will continue into the future for the greater Swan Valley landscape.

The Swan Lake Ranger District is currently building an interested participant list for its recreation management strategy for Krause Basin. The district will coordinate with those individuals to "communicate the next steps in the collaborative process after the participant request period is complete." The deadline to join the list is Aug. 15.

Those interested must email their name, business or organization (if applicable), phone number, physical mailing address and email address to Project Lead Darlene Bridges, at comments-northern-flathead-swan-lake@usda.gov. The subject line should read "Krause Basin."

Individuals may also send a letter to Swan Lake Ranger District at 200 Ranger Station Road in Bigfork with "Attn: Darlene Bridges/Krause Basin."

Reporter Kianna Gardner may be reached at kgardner@dailyinterlake.com.