Great Burn grievances: Stakeholders clash over wilderness complex management

<p dir="ltr">The Great Burn is referred to as &ldquo;one of the last best places&rdquo; by wilderness and wildlife advocates, snowmobilers and mountain bikers. All of them revere the quarter million-acre jumble of peaks along the Montana-Idaho border.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">But wilderness and wildlife advocates&nbsp; &mdash; who have long pushed for bikes and snowmobiles to be banned from the area &mdash; now worry that new U.S. Forest Service plans could chip away at what they believe is the would-be crown jewel connecting the largest chain of wilderness in the Lower 48.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">The issue is a tangled bureaucratic web ensnaring two national forests, two states, one Forest Service regional office, a variety of user groups and a history of conflicting management on one shared landscape full of animals who can&rsquo;t see boundary lines on maps.&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">With me today is Joshua Murdock, the outdoors and natural resources reporter at the Missoulian, to help explain the issue.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>