The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem unites us – a wild week touring southwest Montana
Monday began as it always does, with the alarm on my phone waking me up at 5 a.m. to begin another week of working with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, now and for future generations. Except this week wasn’t like other weeks. This week, I would embark on a whirlwind tour of southwest Montana to explore the landscapes and meet people with whom we collaborate to keep the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem an extraordinary natural and cultural landscape.
The Teton Range rises above the Snake River. (Photo GYC/Craig Benjamin)
Needing to hit the road by 6:30 a.m., I skipped my usual morning run with the dogs on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, from which I have the fortune of living across the street. GYC staff is hard at work through the Bridger-Teton National Forest planning process in collaboration with a large and diverse group of organizations to protect wildlife habitat and migration routes, safeguard rivers and streams, and keep wildlands wild.
I loaded my stuff into our GYC Subaru and hit the road, aiming for a 9 a.m. rendezvous with Sally Schrank, our Montana conservation coordinator, at a fishing access site on the Madison River in southwest Montana to drop a car and begin a two-day loop through the Centennial and Ruby valleys. As I headed out of town, the morning light gleamed off the Tetons and I slowed through the Snake River bridge construction project, where the Wyoming Department of Transportation is building four wildlife crossings because of a multi-year collaborative campaign in which GYC played a leading role. Accelerating out of the bustling hamlet of Wilson, Wyoming, I crested Teton Pass and reflected on the great work of our Idaho and Wyoming staff to ensure that the planning process for this important stretch of road results in the construction of wildlife crossings that reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions.
I descended Teton Pass and began heading north through Teton Valley, Idaho, the “no longer as quiet as it once was” side of the Tetons. Glancing right at Grand Targhee Resort, I reflected on the detailed behind the scenes work of our Idaho team through the National Environmental Policy Act process to ensure the resort’s proposed expansion protects wildlife and habitat. Continuing north into the rolling fields between Tetonia and Ashton, Idaho, I again found myself appreciating our Idaho team’s hard work to ensure the Bureau of Land Management’s Upper Snake Field Office Travel Management Plan protects wildlife habitat and preserves high quality recreation opportunities in this area.
I also reflected on our recent partnership with the Caribou-Targhee National Forest to decommission over 160 miles of old, illegal roads, resulting in over 64,000 acres of secure habitat for grizzly bears and other wildlife (as each mile of road rehabilitated and returned to its natural state directly benefits approximately 400 acres of habitat). Ascending the Henry’s Fork Caldera and rolling through Island Park, Idaho, home to the longest Main Street in the world, I pondered the unlikely alliances we’ve established in one of the most politically challenging communities in America as we work to ensure a large highway reconstruction project enhances wildlife connectivity.
After dropping off my car and transitioning my gear into Sally’s GYC Subaru, we headed back south and then west up Red Rock Pass into the rugged and remote Centennial Valley. The lakes and marshes of the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge sit at the heart of the valley, surrounded by a sea of sagebrush, grasslands, and sand dunes, all framed by the dramatic peaks of the Centennial, Gravelly, and Snowcrest ranges. A cornucopia of wildlife lives in and journeys through the Centennial, including trumpeter swans, sandhill cranes, peregrine falcons, ferruginous hawks, pronghorn, elk, moose, grizzly bears, and wolves. After driving past the headwaters of the Missouri River, we sat down for a meeting with the deputy refuge manager of Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge to discuss conservation issues, including a contentious project to help restore arctic grayling.
The vast Centennial Valley framed by the Centennial Mountains to the south. (Photo GYC/Craig Benjamin)
Leaving the tiny town of Lakeview, we traversed the spiderweb of dirt (and sand!) roads until we arrived at The Nature Conservancy’s hub of activity in the valley to visit with their High Divide headwaters land steward & science manager. We stood in the shade of his front porch, swatting away flies, giggling at the adorable ranch pup delicately attacking a lawn sprinkler, and diving deep into a conversation about research and practices that help people and wildlife coexist in this unbelievably wild place.
Unfortunately, we missed meeting with his fiancé, who works as the wildlife program coordinator for the Centennial Valley Association and was out range riding through a program GYC supports, where she works on items like wildlife-friendly fencing, helping producers move cattle, and monitoring large carnivore activity with remote cameras. Fortunately, we got a fun second-hand account of her adventures in the landscape.
Following a brief stop to say hello to a ranch manager with whom we and two of our conservation partners are collaborating on an innovative grizzly conservation grazing agreement, we began our trek east and out of the valley. We had planned to take back roads through the Gravellies to further explore the area, but an ominous storm cell and a puddle of unusual size forced us to change plans and take the roads more traveled for fear of getting stranded deep in the wilds of Montana, ultimately ending up in Dillon, Montana, after an engaging conversation about how we can create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive conservation movement.
Tuesday began like Monday, with the alarm on my phone waking me up at 5 a.m., only this time I managed to squeeze in a quick sunrise run on the network of trails built by the Beaverhead Trails Coalition (thank you!). Following a long call with a reporter from National Parks Traveler about ungulate migrations in the GYE, Sally and I headed north to Twin Bridges, Montana for the Ruby Valley Strategic Alliance (RVSA) Field Tour.
The RVSA is a group of conservationists, ranchers, elected representatives, and community members who collaborate to maintain and enhance the stewardship of working ranches and public lands in Montana’s Ruby Valley. GYC has been a member of the RVSA since the alliance was founded in 2016. Within the alliance, we support ranchers who are trying to decrease bear-livestock conflict on the public lands where they graze their cattle. Sally and I were joined by dozens of members of the RVSA, GYC Volgenau Foundation Wildlife Conservation Associate Blakeley Adkins, Special Projects Organizer Erin Steva, and former GYC Montana Conservation Coordinator Darcie Warden, who now works as the chief management officer for the RVSA (among other pursuits).
(L-R) GYC’s Montana Conservation Coordinator Sally Schrank, Director of Conservation Craig Benjamin, Special Projects Organizer Erin Steva, and Volgenau Foundation Wildlife Conservation Associate Blakeley on the banks of the Ruby River.
After introductions, welcomes, and a talk through the logistics of the tour, we piled as many people as we could into as few cars and trucks as possible and spent a glorious day touring water projects in the Ruby Valley, focused on learning more about and meeting the wide range of people engaged in this inspiring collaborative conservation effort. I know it’s cliché, but it’s amazing what people can accomplish when they put aside difference and work together toward common goals, and the RVSA takes great pride in this approach. After celebratory drinks fished out of coolers in the back of a flatbed truck, Sally and I headed back to retrieve my car, and I ventured north through the spectacular Madison Valley and then east into the booming burg of Bozeman, rolling into the gorgeous Gallatin Valley in time to catch sunset over the Bridger Range.
RVSA Tour attendees talk water and water resource management along the Ruby River. (Photo GYC/Craig Benjamin)
Wednesday was more of a “normal” workday for me, only it took place out of our Bozeman headquarters, instead of my usual day in our field office in Jackson, Wyoming. After relishing an early run on one of my favorite Bozeman trails, I enjoyed a day of meetings regarding restoring the Big Wind River and buffalo on the Wind River Indian Reservation, conserving the Gallatin and Madison ranges in Montana, upcoming GYC events, the expansion of an innovative big game conservation partnership from Wyoming to Idaho and Montana, stopping the Yellowstone Boundary Gold Mine, and a lovely walk with our executive director.
As amazing as Monday and Tuesday were, Thursday was the day I was most excited about. I met Sally and Joe Josephson, our senior Montana conservation associate, at the GYC Bozeman office at 8 a.m. and we headed east to Livingston and then south through the Paradise Valley toward the site of the proposed Yellowstone Boundary Gold Mine on Crevice Mountain.
Along the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park, just above the town of Gardiner, Montana, Crevice Mountain rises some 3,000 feet above the Yellowstone River. Cloaked in conifer forests and rich with wildlife, Crevice Mountain and the surrounding landscape exemplify much of what is extraordinary about the GYE. The area provides vital habitat for protected grizzly bears; is a critical migration corridor for elk, mule deer, and bighorn sheep; and is one of the few designated places outside the park where Yellowstone bison can roam.
For over a decade, Crevice Mining Group, LLC, has made significant investments toward developing a gold mine on Crevice Mountain, immediately adjacent to one of the world’s most iconic protected landscapes. Located on the border of our nation’s first national park, and just upslope from the pristine Yellowstone River, the mine site overlooks – and would be visible from – nearly half the park. Because of its location, a mine on Crevice Mountain poses a direct and outsized threat to the lands, waters, and wildlife of Yellowstone National Park.
It’s one thing to read these words. It’s an entirely different thing to experience the majesty of Crevice Mountain in person. Joe led Sally and I through a stunning and rugged four-mile hiking tour of the proposed mine site, exploring where the mine’s operations would get located, the complex maze of private properties on the mountain, and the deleterious relics of small old mines on the mountain. Crevice Mountain is a special place. The views encompass nearly all of the northern half of Yellowstone National Park, from the Absaroka Range in the east to the Gallatin Range in the west, all the way south to the Tetons in Wyoming. The wildlife values are too overwhelming to describe.
Overlooking Yellowstone National Park to the south (left) and the Gallatin Range to the north (right) from the top of Crevice Mountain, the site of a potential mine. (Photo GYC/Craig Benjamin)
This is no place for a mine.
Which is why to remove the threat of this mine once and for all, GYC entered into an agreement to purchase the mineral rights, leases, and claims to 1,368 acres of land from Crevice Mining Group, LLC for $6.25 million. We are currently more than 75 percent of the way there, but we need your support to help us reach the finish line by an October 1, 2023 deadline. Please donate now to stop the mine.
Sweaty, dusty, and covered in pollen and seeds from all sorts of plants, Sally and Joe dropped me off at my car in Gardiner, where I cleaned myself up and changed to prepare for a celebration of the expansion of the Bison Conservation Transfer Program quarantine facility. I joined GYC’s Senior Wildlife Conservation Associate Shana Drimal (who leads our bison conservation efforts), Executive Director Scott Christensen, Director of Development Melissa Richey, and a few of our board members and supporters, and we boarded shuttle buses to the Stephens Creek bison quarantine facility along with dozens of Tribal leaders, conservation partners, members of the media, and leaders from the Department of the Interior. You can read the full details about this celebration here: GYC and partners celebrate Bison Conservation Transfer Program and quarantine facility expansion.
The ribbon cutting at the Bison Conservation Transfer Facility Expansion event. Left to Right: Scott Christensen, executive director, Greater Yellowstone Coalition; Chris Geremia, senior bison biologist, Yellowstone National Park; Kate Hammond, regional director, National Park Service; Majel Russell, Crow Tribe of Indians; Cam Sholly, superintendent, Yellowstone National Park; Robbie Magnan, game and fish director for the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes; Ervin Carlson, president, InterTribal Buffalo Council, Blackfeet Nation; Tommy Budreau, deputy secretary, Department of Interior; Troy Heinert, executive director, InterTribal Buffalo Council; Lisa Diekmann, president and chief executive officer, Yellowstone Forever. (Photo NPS / Jacob W. Frank)
Following the ceremony at the facility, we all made our way to the Mammoth Hotel in Yellowstone National Park for a dinner celebration of this milestone graciously hosted by our partners at Yellowstone Forever. Enjoying refreshing drinks and delicious food, we basked in how far we’ve come with bison restoration, while recognizing how far we still have to go, and realizing that if we continue working together, there’s no limits to what we can accomplish. Two highlights of the evening included a rousing talk from the park’s bison biologist about “BOB” the bison and how bison energize the landscape, and an unscripted moment where Tribal singers and drummers played a song and the entire room joined hands in a circle and danced. It was magical, and a fitting metaphor for the power of collaboration.
On Friday I once again rose early, this time to duck into the Lamar Valley to watch wildlife, enjoy a spectacular run up Mount Washburn, and get home to my kids who I miss more than words can describe when I’m on the road for work.
A bull bison grazes at sunrise in Yellowstone National Park. (Photo GYC/Craig Benjamin)
The week was inspiring, stunningly beautiful, and exhausting. It’s an honor to work with the wide range of people collaborating to protect this special corner of the Earth, and I can’t wait to hit the road again.
—Craig Benjamin, Director of Conservation