A big decrease in snowmobile access to a Wilderness Study Area northeast of Big Sky this season is promising a court battle. That battle could determine how the Forest Service sets rules for similar areas across Montana.

The key question is what did lawmakers really mean when Wilderness Study Areas, like the one in the Gallatin Range, were first set up more than 30 years ago.

Click here to read the court decision.

How does the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management define a Wilderness Study area? Click here to find out.

"Well, I think it's pretty clear that Congress intended to allow motorized use to continue in the WSAs,” said Alan Campbell, an attorney for the Department of Agriculture.

That's just what snowmobiling enthusiasts at Citizens for Balanced Use maintain. 

"We did provide the Forest Service with historic use numbers and uses that were up there in Buffalo Horn and the Hyalite area.  And, we just don't feel that Judge Molloy adequately reviewed and considered what we presented him,” Kerry White of Citizens for Balanced Use said.

In fact, Molloy's decision speaks to just that issue, noting that the Forest Service must accommodate motorized travel in the Wilderness Study Areas while at the same time is under Congressional order to maintain a pristine wilderness.

"That's what I think the rub against the Forest Service is that these increasing uses and the volume of the use has increased so much it really does challenge the wilderness values a lot more than those uses did in 1977,” Bob Ekey of the Wilderness Society said.

Citizens of Balanced Use say volume of use was never mentioned or intended in the original legislation and that is why it is appealing Molloy's ruling.

"Our hope would be a locally based constituency coming together that was representative of all user groups that could work toward some sort of solution,” Marna Daley of the Gallatin National Forest said.

But can that happen?

"As long as people come to the table kind of open minded about how all this can work best, then yeah,” Ekey said.

"What we look at, it is a complete closure is not acceptable to working with the Forest Service, working with the different user groups to come up with a plan that allows for shared use,” White said.

Molloy clearly blames Congress for the impasse. While a citizen-based solution to management of these areas may yet happen, which it has not in 32 years, why does the Forest Service think that might happen now?

"It's a really good question. We do not know,” Daley said.

Part 1

The Gallatin National Forest is severely limiting snowmobile use in a wilderness study area south of Hyalite this winter. 

Gallatin National Forest officials say they are not happy at all to issue the new restrictions.

"The Forest Service felt we had no other option than to further reduce snowmobile use to comply with the court order,” Marna Daley said.

"There's going to be a lot of very upset people,” Kerry White of Citizens for Balanced Use said.

Here's why snowmobilers are so angry - the area where snowmobiles are allowed in the Wilderness Study Area will be 85 percent smaller this winter. That means the area is down from 18,000 acres to just a 2,700-acre play area.

Bob Ekey of the Wilderness Society calls this land "a world class wildlife habitat."

"There's a whole lot of area, especially west of highway 191, south of Big Sky, that's open to snowmobiling. There's plenty of opportunity. So in the context of the whole forest it's not that significant,” Ekey said. "This is one place where we think that we would prefer to have it be wilderness, for human and horse-powered recreation only."

White says his group will appeal the rule to the ninth circuit court.  Old Forest Service brochures, pictures and statements from riders show the area has long been used buy snowmobilers and that use should be preserved, White said. Ekey says records provided by snowmobilers themselves show most use in the 1970s was west of 191.

"They really didn't show much interest or show much use in the Gallatin Range,” Ekey said.

"Because the Forest Service doesn't have actual use numbers for what was occurring in 1977 when the Montana Wilderness Study Act was passed, we don't know how many snowmobiles, how many motorcycles, how many mountain bikes.  We don't have that finite information,” Daley said.

That's why the Forest Service says its restrictive new rules will take effect in just a few weeks.

- John Sherer reporting for Z7 in Bozeman