The Right to Ride

The plan was hatched at Roland Cheek’s hunting camp along Wall Creek in the middle of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It was 1972, and Cheek, Ken Ausk and Denny Swift were discussing draft regulations by the U.S. Forest Service that would have required anyone wishing to take a horse into the Bob to apply for, and receive, a permit. These new proposed regulations were, the men believed, a sign of things to come – a push within the Forest Service and some conservation groups to limit the public land horse packers could access. “We felt we had problems with the continuing use of horses up in the Bob Marshall,” Cheek said in a recent interview. “We were talking about it up in the hunting camp and the three of us felt like we had to try to combat that kind of mentality in the Forest Service – so we decided that we would try to form a group.” But while stories like these can be common to organizations trying to preserve one use or another on public land, the men who formed the Backcountry Horsemen of the Flathead took a different approach. They would not spend their time criticizing Forest Service officials at public meetings – although they surely have made their voices heard on policy questions over the last 37 years. Today, the Backcountry Horsemen has spread from Montana into a national organization boasting 16,000 members, with chapters in 25 states, from Alabama to Alaska...Flathead Beacon