Braxton Taylor
On January 17, Custer Gallatin National Forest supervisor Matthew Jedra authorized the East Crazy Inspiration Divide Land Exchange, a long-embattled swap of checkerboarded land parcels held by ranchers, landowners, members of the Yellowstone Club, and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). In a show of transparency for the USFS, the decision documents shed some light on the nature of the interactions between Custer Gallatin National Forest leadership and the Yellowstone Club over the last decade.
In a cover letter published with other decision documents, Jedra—who replaced former Custer Gallatin National Forest supervisor Mary Erickson after she retired at the end of 2023—said he didn’t “take his role as the Responsible Official lightly,” and that his decision “prioritizes securing public access in the east Crazy Mountains in perpetuity while providing for conservation protection measure[s] for all lands leaving and entering federal ownership.”
A few details of the finalized plan set it apart from the original plan that the USFS first presented to the public in 2022. They include conservation easements and deed restrictions for most of the newly privatized parcels and public access to Smeller Lake, all of which sweeten the deal for the public, Jedra writes. But outspoken members of the conservation community have voiced their opposition to the land swap at every turn, despite the work of the Crazy Mountain Access Project—a multi-stakeholder group facilitated by the Yellowstone Club consisting of ranchers, landowners, hunters, anglers, outdoor recreation enthusiasts, and a representative of the Crow Tribe—to make the deal sound appealing for the public.
In 2015, the USFS first started engaging with angry landowners in the east Crazy Mountains. These landowners disagreed with the public’s longtime use of prescriptive easement trails across their property to access USFS inholdings. These trails were recognized, protected, and maintained by the U.S. Forest Service for decades, but the prescriptive easements were never perfected or deeded. They have been all but abandoned by the USFS in recent years, critics say, as landowners have locked gates, blocked access, and otherwise disincentivized their use by members of the public. (For more context on the long, complicated history of public access issues in the Crazy Mountains, read this piece first.)
But the notion of a land exchange in the area really started with the Yellowstone Club, according to an FAQ attached to the USFS decision. In fact, the FAQ goes so far as to use the word “partnership” when describing what the Yellowstone Club was seeking from the USFS at the time. (The USFS regularly partners with both for-profit and nonprofit entities.)
“Around [2015], the Forest was approached by the Yellowstone Club to discuss their continued interest in a previously denied land exchange proposal that would expand Yellowstone Club ski terrain in Big Sky,” the FAQ reads. “The Yellowstone Club asked the Forest to identify priority lands, access needs and opportunities for partnership where they could assist and possibly develop a proposal that would have public benefit. The Forest Supervisor identified public access and land consolidation needs that met Forest Service objectives, including priority work in the Crazy Mountains.
“In 2018, the Yellowstone Club brought in Western Land Group, as a facilitator, to begin working with landowners and stakeholders to develop a proposal for a comprehensive east Crazy Mountains solution,” the FAQ continues. “After several years of negotiation, landowners and Yellowstone Club entered into agreements enabling a multi-landowner exchange proposal to consolidate lands and resolve access issues. As detailed in the Decision Notice (available on the project website), the exchange results in a net reduction of Yellowstone Club ownership in the Big Sky area. No lands are acquired by the Yellowstone Club in the Crazy Mountains.”
One Crazy Mountains landowner involved in the exchange is Switchback Ranch owner David Leuschen. A member of the Yellowstone Club, founder of private equity firm Riverstone Holdings, and former Goldman Sachs partner, Leuschen has largely been seen as one the faces of the Yellowstone Club’s big-money interests in this exchange. The other is CMAP member Mike Ducennois, executive VP of development for Lone Mountain Land Company, the land planning and development arm of the investment firm that owns the Yellowstone Club, CrossHarbor Capital Partners.
An article posted on Leuschen’s own website highlights how “the efforts of the Crazy Mountain Access Project were facilitated by the Yellowstone Club, which has experience with land exchanges” and that “the Yellowstone Club agreed to help coordinate the land swap in the Crazies to help secure land it’s long sought adjacent to the resort.”
The Yellowstone Club has been increasingly subject to the public eye in recent months, namely after serving as a campaign stop for President Donald Trump during his trip to Big Sky, according to Explore Big Sky. The Big Sky event was hosted by North Dakota governor-turned-Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum and cost a minimum of $100,000 to attend.
Now, 3,855 acres of federal lands will be traded for 6,110 acres of private lands in an attempt to consolidate both public and private holdings in a heavily checkerboarded area. While the math dictates that the public is getting access to more acreage, conservation groups like the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers have long held that the trade gives away accessible, highly productive big game habitat for high-elevation “rocks and ice.”
“Last Friday was a sad day for Montana and for all lovers of public land access,” Montana BHA said in an Instagram post. “We are deeply disappointed that the [U.S. Forest Service] has caved to big money and their never-ending goal to lock the public out of public land by executing this deceptive ‘land swap’ that strips the public of prime access to the Crazy Mountains. Despite overwhelming opposition from everyday Montanans, the USFS bent the knee to the wealthy and rewarded the illegal actions of landowners who have for years sought private enclaves of extremely valuable public land.”
Former Montana chapter chair John Sullivan spoke of the scary precedent this exchange sets for public land access across the West, and noted that BHA will continue to engage on the issue with a close legal review of the decision documents. He went back to an original gripe highlighted in a lawsuit BHA and other organizations filed against the USFS in 2019.
“Where do I even start? The most glaring and ridiculous part of the whole thing is that the Forest Service never explored an alternative to defend the public access that once existed. So that became what was perceived as a predetermined outcome,” Sullivan said.
“But if the stated goal of the exchange was to secure public access in the Crazies, and they don’t even put forward an alternative to keep and preserve the trails that have long been there, then what other option is there besides this exchange?”
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