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PedalHawg, my bicycle choppers
Had a REALLY interesting experience with Pat, a Montana Snowbowl ski area employee, while hunting today. I had parked outside Snowbowl's gate, walked across the parking lot and headed west toward La Valle Creek on the service road. Suddenly Pat comes speeding up in his truck and tells me I trespassed across the parking lot and if I get an animal, I can't haul it back across their land. Pat goes on to say I can't hunt the public land on the mountain, there's not much game anyway, and the two hunting rifles he's got in the truck with him are just for shooting coyotes (Yeah, RIGHT!).
What the hell? I can smell some serious BS here, but it's a bad idea to argue when both parties are packing heat so I made nice and headed out. Then I called the Missoula Ranger District.
Turns out there's a public easement across their parking lot to do what hundreds of people do each year and anyone can walk or bike west across the parking lot toward the service road anytime for any reason, including hunting. You can also hunt on Snowbowl's ski slopes all you want as long as you stay off their private eighty acres and don't fire a rifle within 150 yards of other people (of course!) or structures like buildings, electronic sites, or ski lifts (that's a federal rule that applies everywhere).
Not much game, Pat? Again, BS. "Only" hunting coyotes while driving on roads closed to motorized access by the public year long? This raises more than a few questions!!
So, Western Montanans, get on up to Montana Snowbowl and HUNT public land. Be prepared to hike your butt off, stay off the private ground, except to cross the lower parking lot, and if Pat or anyone else harasses you, tell them Montana has a law against harassing hunters and the public can recreate on public land. Geez.
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