Published by Back Country Horsemen of the FlatheadVolume 43, Issue 1 — February 2014 181 Members Strong!www.bchmt.org/flatbch/

Back Country Horsemen - Volunteers are our Strength

• donated 3,159 hours of volunteer time for pack ing, clearing trails, public events, training & education

• hauled stock 12,759 miles to projects• pack stock worked 5,416 hours • packed 28,360 tons of goods

In 2013 our volunteer efforts were worth $199,447.08.

In 2013, members of BCH of the Flathead:

A big thank you to all our members and

their horses and mules who gave their time!

2

THE PURPOSE OF BCH The Back Country Horsemen is organized to:a) Perpetuate enjoyable common sense use of horses in the back

country.b) Assist government agencies in maintenance and management

of the resource.c) Educate, encourage and solicit active public participation in

wise and sustaining use of horses and use by people com-mensurate with our heritage and the back country resource.

BCH Meeting CalendarAll gEnERAl meetings are held on the SECOnD Tues-day of each month. All BOARD meetings are held on the FOURTH Tuesday of each month. Everyone is welcome!! The meetings will all be held at the Fish, Wildlife and Parks building in Kalispell. All meetings are at 7:30 PM.

March11th — general Meeting 25th — Board MeetingApril4-6 — BCH State Convention in Missoula8th — general Meeting 22nd — Board Meeting-May13th — general Meeting 27th — Board Meeting

BCH Officers & DirectorsPresident—Andy BrelandVice President—Chuck AllenSecretary—Jack MeyerTreasurer— Rick MathiesState Directors—Ron Stuber and Ken AuskAlternate State Director—Deborah SchatzBoard of Directors—Amanda Allen Kay lewis Jim ThramerWayne Appl Deborah Schatz Alden TottenEd langlois greg Schatz Kirk Vermillion Calling Committee/Email Chair—Rick MathiesHistorian—Jack MeyerHospitality Chair—Jim and Alice Thramerleave-no-Trace Chair—June Burgaulibrary—Jim and Alice ThramerMembership Chair—Keni Hopkinsnewsletter Committee—Ken Ausk Chris Jolly (Production)On-Time Drawings/Prizes—Jim and Alice ThramerParliamentarian—Russ garvinPublicity Chair—Sherri SadinoSafety/Training Coordinator—Rick MathiesTrails Project Coordinator—Andy BrelandWebsite—Deborah SchatzIssues Committee—Mark Brust, Don Holman, Deborah Schatz, greg Schatz

President's Corner by Andy Breland

Welcome New Members! We want to welcome new members: Chip Beck, Todd and Treva Davis, Michael Gerber, Nancy Hart, Pam Stocks and Teresa York; and to welcome back: Mike Davis and Frank Vitale.

2014 is here and we are off and running. The club’s calendar is filling up at a rapid pace. Take my advice, you better get rested up because it is going to be an action packed year. If you are saying, “Good, the club didn’t do anything last year.” Think again…you might not have done anything last year, but the rest of us sure did. Rick Mathies is working on putting the final numbers for 2013 together and it looks like BCH of the Flathead packed more miles, hauled more tons of freight, and donated more hours of time, than any year in the club’s forty year history! Speaking of 40 years… a big, big thank you to all of you who spent so much time and energy planning, preparing and putting on one of the best state conventions this state has ever had. Flathead chapter you have truly raised the bar for all future conventions to reach for. Looking ahead at 2014 we have already penciled in a lot of fun activities and to make this all happen we are going to need all of your help in pulling it off. If you have always wanted to head up a work party or go out on a packing project, this would be a good year to start. If you want to become more confident in your packing skills and pulling a pack string, there is only one way to do this and that is JUST GO DO IT! Your Vice President, Chuck Allen, and I packed over 600 miles together last summer. Are you asking yourself how did they find time to pack all those miles? Well, we didn’t get it done by sitting at home in front of the TV saying the club sure doesn’t do any projects. Remember one very important thing, if you don’t get out on club activities there is almost no chance to ever win the ROCK. See you on the trail.

Check out BCH of the Flathead’s new website at: http://www.bchmt.org/flatbch/

Please send comments/additions to your webmaster Deborah Schatz.

Annual Membership Dues are Due!$35 single • $45 family

Remember - you must be a paid memberto vote at meetings!!

3

Burn Baby Burn by Andy Breland, BCH President

It may not have started that way but it sure ended up that way! There was a little bit of a slow start to the fire, due to the core of Bud’s slash pile being packed with snow and ice (who would have thought January in Mon-tana). But in true BCHF spirit and with a little hard work, that snow and ice soon melted and flames shot over 40 feet into the clear night

s k y a n d e v e r y o n e was quickly moving their chairs back a few more feet.

It was great to have so many new members there and it turned into a casual opportunity for our new members to meet long-time

members, club officers and even Roland and Jane Cheek, one of the founding families of BCH, while enjoying some of Rick Klein’s famous chili. Folks were making plans for some big packing adventures this summer and some were making new friends to ride with on some ice free afternoon. There were 42 in all kicking back taking in the warmth of the crackling flames while watching the embers float high into the sky. If you weren’t at the first of what 42 people hope to be the first of many BCH winter kick-off-the-year bonfires, you missed one great time with some truly great people! A Big Thank You to Bud

Petryszak for opening up his home to let so many people enjoy such a truly great evening. See you on the trail.The Chili Shack with Chef Rick Klein.

Jim Thramer and Kirk Vermillion.

Chuck, Vivian, and Amanda Allen.

Kirk Vermillion, Todd Davis, Bud Petryszak, Roland & Jane Cheek.Roland and Jane Cheek, Steve Beavers, Alice Thramer.

Your Officers for 2014 by Keni Hopkins

After elections held at the December general meeting, the members of BCH reelected Andy Breland as President, Chuck Allen as Vice President, Jack Meyer as Secretary and Rick Mathies as Treasurer. Ron Stuber was elected to a two-year term as StateBoard Director, and Deborah Schatz was elected asAlternate State Board Director (one-year term). Ken Ausk is our holdover State Board Director and will serve another year in his current term. With five positions open on the Board of Directors,

we elected Amanda Allen, Wayne Appl, Greg Schatz, Jim Thramer and Kirk Vermillion for two-year terms. Our holdover Directors who have one year remaining in their terms are Ed Langlois, Kay Lewis, Deborah Schatz and Allen Totten. A big thank you to all our Officers and Directors who give unselfishly of their time and talent. Thanks also to Nominating Committee, Committee Chairs and all those who help keep BCH a vital and growing organization for present and future Wilderness riders.

4

Wayne ApplNew Board Member

My name is Wayne Appl. I was born in Chicago, Il. in 1959 and graduated from high school in 1977. I started working at the Golden Horse Ranch in Westfield, WI in 1975 as a waiter in the children’s dining room. I became a wrangler at 16, the head wrangler at 19, and worked every season until 1995. In 1980 I moved to Montana and I worked at Kalispell Regional Medical Center as a maintenance engineer from 1996 until 2000. At that time my youngest left the house, so I left KRMC and went back to my passion, HORSES! I worked for Mule Shoe Outfitters as the manager for the Many Glacier corral in GNP from 2000 until 2003, and managed a team roping arena in Wickenburg, AZ in the winters of those same years. In 2004-2005 I was the head wrangler at Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch in Loveland, CO and in 2006-2007 I was the head wrangler at the

Bar W Guest Ranch in Whitefish, MT. In 2007 I started working for Swan Mountain Outfitters - 2 years managing the outfitter camp, and 4 years again managing the Many Glacier corral in GNP. So there ya have it, my life in a nutshell!

Kirk VermillionNew Board Member

Ki rk Vermi l l ion and his wife, Sarah, moved to Northwest Montana in 2012 from Western Penn-sylvania. Kirk was born and raised in Pittsburgh and began working around horses in high school. In 2004, he moved to Colorado to work as a wrangler at a dude ranch. Kirk returned to Pittsburgh after one summer in Colorado to start his own business remodeling and flipping houses. After the housing market crashed in 2009, Kirk returned to college in order to help achieve his dream of living in the Rocky Mountains. Kirk received a Bachelors degree from Slippery Rock University in 2012 where he studied Parks & Recreation, Resource Manage-ment with focus in law enforcement. He has a passion for the outdoors and enjoys camping, hunting, fish-ing and making trips into the backcountry with his horses. Kirk joined the Back Country Horsemen as a way to learn about packing stock and to get involved with helping to preserve the use of stock in Wilderness areas for future generations.

Get to Know Your BCH Officers

Tack & Saddle RepaiR

Upcoming Events

March 29 LAC Meeting, 10 am in Choteau ~ Details to follow by emailApril 27 Poker Ride ~ In FortineMay 4 - 10 Forestry Expo ~ Volunteers needed!

$12,515,563.05The 2012 value of volunteer efforts

by all chapters of Back Country Horsemen of America

5

RAFFLE • RAFFLE • RAFFLE

At the 2013 Back Country Horsemen of Montana State Convention in Kalispell there was a lot of talk about getting youth or at least younger people involved in the back country. How to do that was the big question. One good way is to win a pack saddle and that is just what happened. Patrick Totten, a 12 year old member of the Flathead Chapter, had the winning raffle ticket for the custom-made decker pack saddle donated by Trailhead Supply in Kalispell, MT. Congratulations Patrick!!!

The Winner is... by Andy Breland

Tickets $2.00 each - Drawing at the Banquet April 5, 2014

• Ruby, The Ninemile Mule ~ a bronze sculpted by Bill Ohrmann of Drummond• Mission Mountain Getaway Cabin ~ A four night stay for four by Swan Lake

• Bob Marshall Wilderness Outfitter Pack Trip ~ A Five to seven day pack trip for two • Decker Pack Saddle ~ With O. P. RobinetteTree

For Raffle tickets call Andy Breland at 752-4437 or stop by Trailhead Supply in Kalispell

Andy Breland and Sydney Paine presenting rafle

winner Patrick Totten the custom-made decker

pack saddle.

The Back Country Horsemen of Missoula proudly host

Workshops & Seminars - Entertainment - Silent AuctionLive Auction - Raffle - Photo Contest - Commercial Vendors

Please check our website for up to date information: www.bchmt.org/missoulaOr for more information call: Mark Wright 406-258-6795 Ken Brown 406-207-6067

Back Country Horsemen of Montana State ConventionApril 4, 5 & 6, 2014 Hilton Garden Inn Missoula

6

Last Monday I had a doctor’s appointment. After being poked and prodded, measured and weighed the doctor walked in. He sat down looked at his laptop (they don’t have clipboards with paper anymore) and started talking to me about hay production. After a couple of minutes I said, “Did you buy a mule” “Nope, a hay ranch.” I’m glad to see the money I pay him is staying in the valley. I finally asked him, “Is everything ok? I’ve got things to do.” He looked up smiled and said, “You’re in great shape for a guy your age.” I must have had that look; he told me, “No, don’t take me wrong, I wish most of the 20 year old patients I see were in as good as shape as you. It is just you’re getting older and you might not bounce as well as you use to, so be careful when you are pulling that string of yours around the ‘Bob.’” I could have told him that and saved a couple of hundred dollars. The fact is he was right—you, me, none of us are getting any younger. Last April Back Country Horsemen of the Flathead were honored and proud to host their 40th anniversary celebration and the Montana Back Country Horsemen State Conven-tion, here in Kalispell, MT. The Flathead Chapter did a great job at collecting old photos, stories and guest speakers to take a look back at the past 40 years. On the Saturday night of the convention at the annual banquet dinner where over 300 people were enjoying their prime rib dinner, I was seated next to Rick Potts, our key note speaker. We were chatting as he was going over his notes for his presentation. I laughed when I saw all his notes were written out on notebook paper. I told him I had to run the president’s breakfast meeting in the morning for all the chapters’ presidents so don’t talk all night as I needed to get up early. He asked what I was going to talk on and I said a tough subject in this crowd, getting youth involved or at least younger folks. I went on to tell him that this outfit is really good at looking backwards at the past, the way its been for forty years but have a real hard time looking forwards. As Rick was being introduced and started to walk forward under the applause, he looked back and said, “Let me open the door for you.” Rick spoke about his background, where BCH started, and how we got to where we are today. He stopped and took a long, hard look out over the 300 plus people and said, “I’ve known a lot of you for a lot of years, you’re steady, I know what you can do, who to turn to when I need to get something done. But if you

were my string, it would be time to break some new colts.” Applause filled the room. The following morning at the president’s breakfast we spoke on youth recruitment, insurance issues, possible liabil-ity problems. It seemed as if folks were grasping the problem, there was and is no one to replace us to carry the torch to keep BCH running another 40 years. Then I said I felt that one of the big problems is all of us in this room. We won’t give up our chair at the table to someone new or younger. And I’m just as bad. Using myself as the example: I’ve been on Flathead’s board, State board, Treasurer for 3 years, Vice President for 2 years, and now President for 2 years, even if I don’t run my 3rd term (I’m now in my 3rd term). I’ll still be on the board yet another year as past President. We don’t give anyone new or younger a chance. Then the groaning started and some of the enthusiasm started to die… well, there was the no one is qualified, the new folks don’t fully understand, etc, etc, etc. I’m not saying step down and go away, I’m not suggesting to leave the club, not at all. We have committees that need to be chaired, we need the years of knowledge we have all acquired and the new people coming in will need to be trained, but give other folks a chance to learn and grow; become a resource for them. Look around, where will we be in 10 or 20 years? Who will be left, who will be running this outfit? Well, its been a year since our convention last April and Missoula is all geared up to host the 2014 Montana State Convention and what has changed in BCHM over the last year??? Nothing, but the date on the calendar and we are all just another year older.

Breaking Some New Colts by Andy Breland, President BCHF

7

Will Your Horse go Hungry Tonight? - Part 2 By Allen Rowley, Forest Supervisor, Fishlake National Forest, Utah

In the last article we discussed how much forage a horse needs each day, perhaps this was review for a lot of you. This article may be new and different as it amounts to several hours of college courses in range management, and/or years of practical experience boiled down to a page or two on range condition and what it means. What is the range condition, or health, of your graz-ing area? Determining range condition can be complicated, but it is a critical tool for management because range condition has a strong control over how much forage a site may produce. Range condition or health is measured by comparing the ideal amount of naturally occurring vegetation against what is actually on the site. Sites with the greatest amount of the ideal vegetation are in the best condition, rated as excellent. The ideal naturally occurring vegetation is determined by the soils, elevation, precipitation amounts and a number of other variables. These same factors also influence the productivity of the site. Comparing the existing vegetation with the ideal vegetation has a real practical value for range management. On bunchgrass ranges the naturally occurring vegetation is the very vegetation that horse, mules, and wildlife desire, seek out and graze first. This is also the grass species that provides the most nutri-tion for grazing animals. Therefore managing for good to excellent range condition is advantageous as it provides the most productive and nutritional forage. In the Bob Marshall and surrounding Wilder-ness areas, there are three premier grass species sought out by all grazing animals; Idaho fescue, bluebunch wheatgrass, and rough fescue. These three grass species rank highest in productivity, palatability, and nutritional value for both pack stock and wildlife species.The downside to these grasses is they are known as decreasers. Meaning they are so desirable that they are sought out and grazed again and again, until if unchecked, they may be reduced in numbers. Continual season-long grazing with no chance for the grass plants to regrow and build up an energy store in the roots will kill the plants over time. In our part of the country the regrowth happens typically in May through July when the soils are moist. At least one out of every three years, grass plants should not be grazed during this regrowth period. The various rest rotation and deferred rotation grazing

systems are based on this principle of providing some rest, thus allowing regrowth during the summer. In a Wilderness setting, you can see how a problem could develop. A party with horses and mules arrives at a campsite in mid June. There is plenty of grass so they free graze all of their stock and use very little supplemental feed. This group moves on the next day, but next week another party does the same thing. This continues all summer long, at this popular campsite week after week; the grass never gets the chance to completely regrow and build up an energy store. This is exactly the situation that is happening in the most popular areas of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, for example the area from Meadow Creek to Salmon Forks on the South Fork of the Flathead.The following table shows the correlation of range condi-tion to the amount of forage available. This information is taken from range surveys done in 1993. There is variation from site to site, but the chart does paint a clear picture of some poor condition range sites in popular areas, and how low their production is compared to a site in good or excellent condition.

As a rule of thumb, bunchgrass range sites in good to excellent condition produce 600 - 1,000 lbs. of grass per acre. The production on sites in poor or fair condition is dramatically below this level. The above chart is not a complete sample of all the areas in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, but note the number of sites in poor to condition along the popular South Fork corridor.

Location Condition Production (dry weight grass) Danaher Meadows Good-Excellent 1100 lbs/acreBabcock Creek Good 700 lbs/acreBartlett Meadow Good 420 lbs/acreSpring Creek Fair 870 lbs/acre in Danaher Meadows Murphy Flats Fair 400 lbs/acreHodag Flats Fair 250 lbs/acreBig Slide Poor-Fair 220 lbs/acre in Young’s CreekSouth end of the Poor-Fair 205 lbs/acre old Black Bear AirstripKelly Point Poor 102 lbs/acre (near Black Bear)

continued on page 8

8

Become a member in 2014 ! ! !Dues are $45 per year for a family, or $35 per year for single membership. This price includes all newsletters - local, state and national. Please fill in this form and mail it to BCH of the Flathead, P. O. Box 1192, Columbia Falls, MT 59912.Name ___________________________________________________

Spouse's Name ___________________________________________

Mailing Address ___________________________________________

City/State/Zip _____________________________________________

Phone (very important) _____________________________________

E-mail: __________________________________________________

____ $45 Family (# in family _____) ____ $35 Single

____ New Member ____ Renewal

A 501(c)(3) Non-profit Organization

Back Country Horsemenof the FlatheadP.O. Box 1192

Columbia Falls, Montana 59912A 501(c)(3) Non-profit Organization

nOn-PROFIT ORg.U.S POSTAgE

PAIDCOlUMBIA FAllS, MT

PERMIT nO. 8

Now that we have some understanding of range condition, what it is, and how important it is, what can we do with the information? Two options are available. One, when camping in popular corridors use SUPPLEMENTAL forage as much as possible. You will be doing your part to allow the grass the needed rest. The Spotted Bear Ranger District is so concerned about this that we are planning to feed 100% supplemental forage for all government animals at the Black Bear Administrative site. One commercial

Will Your Horse go Hungry, continued from pg 7

outfitter is planning to feed 100% hay in the Black Bear vicinity. The second action for a Wilderness traveler to take would be to simply avoid areas in poor range condition and camp somewhere else. In the next issue, we will wrap up with a tool to determine if there is enough grass to support your stock; and a method to determine how much the site has already been grazed.

Are you just sitting around the house watching it snow??? Here is a chance for you to get out and brush up on your packing skills. If you want to build your confidence, learn some new tricks or just jump in and learn how to put all those horses and mules you have been feeding all winter to use this summer, the Kalispell School District has a class for you in their Adult Education program. It will be held on Thursday nights through February. Go online and print out your registration form spaces are limited. Additional information call Andy Breland 406-752-4437 http://www.sd5.k12.mt.us/domain/148

Packing Classes