Bow hunter John Sullivan of Missoula thought the Durfee Hills in Central Montana, and with them one of the state’s largest elk herds, were inaccessible, until his friend Doug Krings of Lewistown asked him if he wanted to come along to the isolated stretch of public land.
On an October afternoon, the pair took an airplane to a place few others have set foot in and which many don’t even know exists.
From above, evidence of civilization surrounds the pine-forested hills on the eastern edge of the Little Snowy Mountains, 20 miles southeast of Lewistown, with road, trucks and ranch houses visible in the distance. Once you’re there, however, the BLM land exudes an unusual quiet even for public land.
“There is a feeling of remoteness, but at the same time, you don’t feel like you are anywhere at all,” Sullivan said.
The Center for Western Priorities in Denver includes the Durfee Hills in the 1.9 million acres in Montana it has identified as lacking public access. Two brothers control all roads leading in.
Yet as long as people who know about the area are able to connect with a willing pilot, the Dufree Hills can be called at least partially accessible to the general public, including hunters experienced enough to be dropped in the woods with no legal exit by road.
Pilot Jason Birdwell of Lewistown has owned a small airplane for 20 years and has been flying into the Durfee Hills for about 15 years. Besides hunting, he spends time there collecting antlers, picking berries, foraging mushrooms and camping out.
For many Montanans, the cost of maintaining an airplane or hiring one may seem entirely out of reach. Birdwell and Sullivan think that’s not true.
“The cost of owning and maintaining an airplane is similar to owning a big truck,” Birdwell said, comparing miles per gallon and the price of an airplane to the cost of operating one of the heavy trucks ubiquitous in the state.
A one-way trip from Lewistown on Birdwell’s Piper SuperCub costs $50, enough to cover of a tank of gas. As opposed to an outfitter, a recreational pilot is allowed only to charge for his operating expenses, but more trips might be required if a hunter actually harvests an elk.
Sullivan argues the Durfee Hills are more accessible than many places that require backcountry access by horseback, because hunters who fly in don’t necessarily need a guide.
“It’s a lot more accessible than people think it is,” he said.
Birdwell estimates that last year about 45 hunter days were spent by a group of pilots flying into the Durfee Hills. An exact number of hunters is hard to quantify since there is no permit or flight recording needed to land on the dirt roadways. There are seven pilots who fly mostly out of the Lewistown Airport and Birdwell has seen two new pilots show up this year.
Brad Purdy of the BLM office in Billings looked up outfitter permits or Special Recreation Permits to find that there was one outfitter operating an air taxi helicopter service with an additional 20 hunters staying for 60 days last year.
Dan and Farris Wilks, a pair of brothers from Texas who made their $3-billion fortune in hydraulic fracturing, have purchased more than 341,845 acres in Montana as of 2014. Their controlling stakes in ranches that hold access rights to various wildlife habitats have placed them at the center of conflict between differing land values.
The N Bar and Pronghorn ranches, owned by the Wilks, surround the 2,700 acres that make up the Durfee Hills. Previous owners granted hunters some access. But since the Wilks took over, only their friends have been allowed to traverse the property, their representative Darryl James said, as well as a group of young hunters from nearby communities who are invited annually to chase elk.
Recently, the property line between land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the N Bar Ranch has become more visible. The Wilks are marking portions of the property by clear-cutting and fencing the boundary to the BLM parcels, according to Sullivan. New roads have also been constructed to reach portions of the boundary.
“No one is against personal property rights, but that doesn’t mean that they have the right to control a piece of public property,” Sullivan said.
Of a total of 27 million acres of public land in Montana, 1.2 million acres have no access through private lands, while another 0.7 million acres are part of a checkerboard that does not allow crossing at corners without landowner consent.
In addition, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks’ Block Management Program made roughly 8 million acres of private land available for the 2014 hunting season. The program had a waiting list of landowners hoping to enroll once more funds become available through a proposed increase in hunting fees.
Many of those owners consider themselves stewards of the land, preventing subdivision by continuing to operate large cattle herds.
But John Gibson, of the Public Land/Water Association in Billings, sees them as a negative force. “The influx of money is a real danger to public access,” he said. “There is a certain degree of self-interest that comes from being able to buy that amount of land and influence.”
This spring a land swap proposed by the Wilks to trade access rights to the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument with the BLM’s Durfee Hills was turned down by the BLM in August, after sportsmen and residents said the deal would have given away an important public hunting area for lands that were less valuable wildlife habitat.
“The reality is that they are holding public land hostage,” Sullivan said. “We shouldn’t have to give up public land to have access to other public land.”
Yet the Wilks are unlikely to be swayed to allow any road access, and a future land swap is not likely to include trading in the Durfee Hills.
On their recent trip to the land-locked area, Sullivan and Krings set-up camp near the BLM road that is used as a landing strip. The pair spent the next two days chasing and calling in elk all around the property. Despite no luck in getting close enough to draw a bow, Sullivan and his partner saw many elk while hiking from their campsite to the ridges where the animals cross the invisible line of public and private land.
“This type of access is the perfect access for that kind of country,” Sullivan said, noting the pine forests, wildlife habitat and elk herd sheltered behind the Wilks’ ranches.
As Montana changes and grows in population there are many opportunities for hunters to gain access, but somewhere else that access may be slipping away.
Another version of this story is published here