EDITOR'S NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Livingston Enterprise. Reprinted here with permission of The Enterprise.
by Dwight Harriman
The coronavirus produces a fever, all right—a burning desire to get out of the house, especially as temperatures climb deliciously into the 70s and 80 these days.
That fever has propelled lots and lots of people onto national forest trails in Park County—many more people than those of us who hike those trails have seen this time of year.
Witness the recent short trek we took on Memorial Day to Pine Creek Falls outside of Livingston, Montana in Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone National Park. What possessed us to undertake the outing to that location on one the biggest holidays of the year, on an already busy trail, in enticing hey-let’s-all-go-to-Pine-Creek-today weather, I don’t know—perhaps we were having one of those Covid-19 hallucinations some people have.
Whatever, we paid for it.
From the crammed parking lot to the falls, it was wall-to-wall people. We estimated we saw perhaps 120 hikers going up and down the trail, including adults, youth, kids — and dogs. If you wanted to enjoy wilderness solitude, you had about 20 seconds between parties to do it. Social distancing, which should have been easy in the woods, was tricky.
It was irritating, but can you blame people? After months of going mad sheltering at home, wearing masks, sanitizing hands — over and over and over — and not being able to go anywhere, you feel like if you don’t get out into the woods you’ll go nuts.
But one wonders if these numbers are caused by something beyond Covid cabin fever, like local population growth and perhaps another —we don’t want to say sinister, but why not— reason: pressure from Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley.
Could it be that Gallatin folks are sick and tired of their own jammed trails and come over here to enjoy a better wilderness experience?
Witness a recent weekend at Suce Creek, a beautiful, peaceful trail you could always count on to be low on people. This particular weekend there were 20 cars and trucks at the trailhead, overflowing the parking space and spilling onto road shoulders.
A quick license plate review showed seven of the vehicles were “6 plates” from Gallatin County. That’s 35 percent. Of the remaining vehicles, two were from out of state and the rest were either Park County or specialty plates whose county origin was unknown. Meaning the Gallatin Valley count could have been even higher.
The effect of that many cars was reflected on the trail — lots of people, and lots of dogs.
No knock against dogs—they are officially welcome in the Custer-Gallatin National Forest and are fun to have along. But the forest urges you to leash them when approaching other hikers or horses and to clean up your dog’s waste.
Our recent Suce Creek trek included an unleashed dog coming up and barking at us, and a fight between dogs of two other hiking parties. Up the trail a ways was a dog poop bag lying on the ground. If you went to the trouble to bag it, why didn’t you pack it out to avoid creating more litter? No better way to ruin a wilderness walk.
Are all these people a permanent trend? As Livingston and the surrounding area gets more and more discovered, and as Bozeman keeps exploding, is this a new normal?
Are all these people a permanent trend? As Livingston and the surrounding area gets more and more discovered, and as Bozeman keeps exploding, is this a new normal?
Hopefully, if the virus dies down, the large numbers of people on our local trails will too. But don’t count on it. We might just have to get used to this, and head for more remote trails to find solitude.
But if this is indeed a permanent situation, let’s all exercise respect for each other on the trail and enjoy the wilderness the best we can under changing circumstances.
About Dwight Harriman
Dwight Harriman is news editor of The Livingston Enterprise in Livingston, Montana.
