Recreating in Your National Monument
The Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument (UMRBNM) offers myriad year round recreational opportunities. This is a truly remarkable landscape and river that is just now beginning to be discovered by outdoor recreation enthusiasts. The major uses are canoeing the river and hunting. To learn more about recreating in the UMRBNM we offer the following links and suggestions to help you discover the Monument's potential and plan your visit:
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COAL BANKS LANDING NEW VISITOR CENTER TO OPEN SOON
The Mountaineer Big Sandy Montana 59520 By Robert Lucke March 2, 2011
Drive to the Coal Banks Landing Campground near Virgelle and you will get the feeling that the Bureau of Land Management has finally realized what a valuable piece of real estate they have in the Upper Missouri National Monument and Wild and Scenic Corridor of the Upper Missouri River.
To the east side of the campground is being built an incredible log Visitor Center. The Center is complete with an inside soaring gabled roof, two rooms, a fabulous front porch that seems to almost hang right over the river at that point
and logs with at least 10 to 12-inch butts.
The day Glenn Braun and I were there, no one could tell us how much the log kit Visitor Center was going to cost. One thing for sure, the builders who put it together in Gallatin Gateway really knew what they were doing. The walls will be chinked but they don’t need to be because there is such a close fit from log to log!
Mike Weninger is the project superintendent. He and his crew are from Affiliated Construction out of Helena. Affiliated Construction got the low bid for the Visitor Center.
The crew at the site presently consists of Petrusha and Justin Travis.
The men try to work four 10-hour days to give them a long weekend at home in Helena. While at Coal Banks Landing, the crew stays at the Virgelle Mercantile.
Glenn Braun said that he heard that the Visitor Center at Coal Banks Landing was built with stimulus funds.
Construction started last fall and plans are to have the building and some underground sprinkler lines all completed by April.
Talk is that the BLM is looking for grant money to put a similar building at Jim Kipp Park near the Fred L. Robinson Bridge south of Malta. Still another is needed at Judith Landing, however, the BLM does not own a site suitable for a building there.
Inside, the building is the bare essentials for the most part. It has no heat or plumbing and will be mainly for summer use only.
But one thing is for sure. The United States Government doing business at the Bureau of Land Management is having a noteworthy building at that great campground and landing site. With its grand front porch, immense log walls and cedar shake roof, the Visitor Center complements the magnificent scenery.
THREE ARTICLES from THE MOUNTAINEER
The Mountaineer Big Sandy Montana 59520 By Robert Lucke December 1, 2010
National Monument: An Interview with Hugo Tureck
Tureck is as rugged as the Missouri Breaks themselves and was a perfect man to talk to about the organization he as much as anyone founded, he is vice chairman of this today. Friends of :he Missouri Breaks National Monument is a strong organization that has been at it for a long time. I could not get a. figure on just how many members they have.
Tureck has been at it for a long time as well. He has taught sociology at both MSU and UM and then, as he put it, married the rancher's daughter, and has been a farmer/rancher at Coffee Creek ever since.
Tureck laughs when he describes his position as advocate for wilderness and the Monument, as not only is he a rancher/farmer, but he ranches on public lands.
The mission of Friends is simple according to Tureck, "It is to protect the monument."
That seems to cover a multitude of sins as there are threats, some perceived and some very real that. have been going on since the area was designated a National Monument by President Clinton. President Clinton's Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt spent several years getting groups together to explore whether or not things needed to be done to insure that public lands in the upper Missouri River corridor stayed pristine and undeveloped.
I remember that in June of 1999 Babbitt came to Fort Benton along with Senator Baucus and. Steven Ambrose floated the river along with a contingent of press people to get a feel of the area and stood up to the press and said he felt the area needed more protecting.
"You can't get more public then that," said Tureck. "Yet some people always say that the monument was done in the middle of the night," Tureck added. In the next years Babbitt called for a series of public meetings that would be balanced in tone between those who favored a further river designation and those who did not. Tureck contends that there was much local and Montana input at each meeting.
In all the meetings there was no consensus about whether there should be a monument or not and what the boundaries would be. However, the Antiquities Act itself has caused consternation and still does apparently. Tureck said that most modern presidents, both Republican and Democrat have used the act which basically states that the president can deem lands to National Monument status.
That was done by Congress because Congress knew they had so many interests to deal with that they could never get that job done," continued Tureck. "However, Congress retained the ability to veto any lands placed in that category. Even that act is in peril these days. Montana congressman Dennis Reberg has introduced a couple of bills to eliminate the Antiquities Act.
As to grazing and property rights, grazing cannot be eliminated from Monument lands according to Tureck. There can be reduced allotments in some places if the landscape demands it. Not only that but private property rights are strongly upheld in Monument areas. Tureck contends that he and most Friends are all for multiple use but draws the line at oil and gas development in the area. Oil and gas development is not compatible with wilderness areas Tureck thinks. Nor are the myriad of roads that honeycomb parts of the area.
Issues that worry Tureck these days are bills to remove private property from Monument areas. Tureck cannot understand why land owners would ever want to do that, as when their land is included in the Monument area, they have another willing buyer, the BLM, if they should ever choose to sell. And then there is such a strange political climate these days that the whole Monument could become unraveled.
Too many roads worry Tureck. That affects the security of the area and certainly hurts ranchers too. "I struggle with landing strips in the area, said Tureck. "But I really think they will be less and less used as time goes on." Tureck is concerned with stream bank and riparian areas in the Monument area and hopes the Bureau of Reclamation will release enough water to let cottonwoods establish themselves. Tureck sums it up this way. "I have come to realize that towns are not growing out here but the Monument presents a potential for community growth.”
The Mountaineer Big Sandy Montana 59520 Robert Lucke October 6, 2010
National Monument: An interview with Stanley Janes
As I talked to more people and get more information on monument status and public lands issues in this part of Montana, it occurred to me that the Bureau of Land Management is right in the middle of everything.
There is BLM field office in Havre. There I talked to Stanley Jaynes who is the Havre Field Office Manager. I told him of my concerns regarding making all of this part of Montana into a place devoid of people and asked him his views of the Malta meeting and what he knew of things around the Upper Missouri Monument area. Jaynes told me that the BLM was started in 1946 by President Harry Truman. The BLM is under the auspices of the Interior Department but unlike their more famous sister, the Park Service, the BLM is managed as a multi use area. The Havre Field Office controls 395,000 surface acres of land and 900,000 mineral acres.
aynes told me he was amazed at the amount of people at the Malta meeting. He continued that the Bureau of land Management Director was there specifically to talk about leaked memos in the BLM. 
I wanted to know why grazing fees were so low on BLM land compared to state of Montana Lands. BLM animal unit grazing fees this year were at $1.35 as opposed to State and Tribal grazing fees of $15 to $19 per animal unit.
Jaynes told me that a formula for BLM fees is that a lot of BLM land is land turned back to the government by broke homesteaders and is really poor land not good for much of anything. State lands, on the other hand, usually are school sections and are much more productive land areas in general.
I told that story to Janes who agreed and showed me a map of all the turned back homesteads and larger chunks of land that were such that they were never taken up for any reason. Those areas are quite a chunk of Blaine, Phillips and Valley Counties. Not so much in Hill and Chouteau.
I asked Jaynes about the lack of signs in BLM land north of the Missouri and how there was so much more signage in other BLM areas in Montana. Janes pointed out that the BLM has always had a strong presence in the Little Rockies, signage and other aspects as well, but that in some area there are some people who like signs and other people who would probably not like to see signs at all.
In the area there just hasn’t been a lot of recreational development. Until now there hasn’t been a lot of demand for it. However, one thing the public always wants is better access. I asked Jaynes what he knew about a plan to make most of this part of Montana into a prairie wilderness of some sort. “I can’t speculate on what people think but it started around 25 years ago with an area called “The Big Open” which was to be an American Serengeti. The idea was to have two million acres just like Lewis and Clark found it,” related Jaynes. The organization with that plan was the American Prairie Foundation.
hey bought large ranches in Phillips County and introduced buffalo which the BLM authorized as domestic animals. Issues like that are to be covered in a new management plan put out this spring in cooperation with many other public agencies in the area. I told Mr. Jaynes that someone had told me he got wind of that plan and that it is “scary”.
“The plan hasn’t come out in draft. It is still within the internal working group but most of us don’t like change, especially as we grow older and there are more restrictions.” Jaynes related that until 2003 motorized vehicles could drive anywhere off authorized roads. Certainly not true now!
We have more and more sensitive species to deal with like sage grouse and we try to protect cultural sites. Why would people want to destroy these sites I don’t know, but they do,” continued Jaynes.
“Not only that, but any change is use to scary to some and remember that scary is in the eye of the beholder. We have been working for years to find a common ground for real multiple use because depending on what interests are, that is what we do. If we tip it right or left, it is off course,”said Jaynes. “You know, a conservation group leader was talking to us awhile back and he said, ‘Public land means everyone gets a say but not everyone gets their way,’” said Jaynes smiling again
The Mountaineer Big Sandy, Montana 59520 by Robert Lucke October 17, 2010
National Park Monument: An interview with Dana Darlington
This is the third in a series entiled a fresh view of the National Monument. This week is an interview with Big Sandy native Dana Darlington, a member of the Missouri River Stewards, as well as a member of the Missouri River Conservation District Council.
Darlington is a fourth generation Montana farmer/rancher whose land borders the Missouri south of Big Sandy. His is a family operation that was started when Darlington land was homesteaded in 1917. Darlington explained that the Missouri River Stewards was a group formed right after the Upper Missouri Monument designation.
When we woke up and found we were designated a monument, that group was formed,” said Darlington. “It consists mostly of ranchers and those with common interests of ranchers.” Darlington is proud of his involvement with the Missouri River Conservation District Council. That group consists of one member from each Conservation District that borders the Missouri in Montana and interested agencies.
Typically they work on such issues as grazing, cottonwood trees and recreation along the river and in the Upper Missouri National Monument area.
Lets face it. A primary issue is grazing. Some would love to see it banished from BLM lands. Other think it is a economic necessity for this part of Montana less the area face more shrinking communities than ever. “There are forces mounted to eliminate grazing on BLM lands,” says Darlington. “However as long as there is multiple use in place for these lands, grazing will always be there however, some may be limited compared to what it is now.”
As to those cottonwood trees, some recreationalists and environmental groups want a rush of water down the Missouri from the dams to help get cottonwood seedlings going in the first place for it is essential for some flooding to occur for optimum growth of cottonwood seedlings. Darlington’s groups is for a less drastic approach such as artificially pumping in areas to mimic flooding conditions. Darlington says that sending large amounts of water from the Marias and Holter would do much in the way of riparian damage. As to recreation, Darlington contends that BLM lands are multiple use and must be kept open to recreation and sportsmen.
Most dry land farmers in the northern tier had heard plenty about CRP. Less known is CREP which is a program along the Madison and Missouri Rivers to reclaim lands in trees. Ranchers get paid to establish tree claims. The costs are shared by owners of power producing dams and the government. So far this has not been a successful program. From the Fred Robinson Bridge up stream to and including parts of the Madison, out of a total of 11,000 eligible acres, only 500 acres have been put into this program. The Soil Conservation Council was asked to provide input into why this is such an unsuccessful program.
“We started looking into it,” said Darlington. “The tree survival rate was too low even though there is a wide variety of trees that can be planted.” Acreages are lower than CRP but typically pay better. “The problem is you have a 75% survival rate on your trees or you have to replant them. That is just too expensive,” and Darlington. Darlington said the Council is trying to get a lower survival rate amendment among other things.
Of course Darlington and his groups have heard of the Serengeti approach to a grassland wilderness north of the Missouri, That frightens them, too. Still though, Darlington does not wake up nights in a cold sweat thinking of what could happen to this part of Montana. “I don’t know if we are winning,” continued Darlington. “We have been around for ten years and we are respected representatives at the table.”
"The cattle aren’t there, there will be no hotels, no gas stations, no grocery stores. We will have lost the whole of our communities,” related Darlington. Then I asked Darlington just how objective he could be on these matters considering how tied to the land he was economically? “After being involved for ten years I am more objective than I used to be,” Darlington said, smiling. “I have seen when wildlife interests, hunting interests and ranching interests can all work together. Darlington has toured the Beartooth Wilderness area out of Holter and seen how ranchers in the area were able to work with wilderness folks to get elk out of ranch lands and back into the public lands. The Conservation Council was proactive in starting a stakeholder group similar to the Holter area for the CMR Game Refuge.
Stakeholders are defined as any persons who have any interests in any area. In this case stakeholders might include ranchers, environmentalists, preservationists, outfitters, recreationalists and anyone else with an interest in that part of Montana.
Almost 75 years ago, when Havre Theatre owner Emil DonTigny started floating the Missouri, then got Harrison Lane and Northern Montana College interested in that wild and primitive land, they found the land about how Lewis and Clark had left it so many year ago.
More information about Nez Perce TrailNez Perce National Historical Park
Now Available
Friends Recreational Hiking Map and Guide
The Friends of the Missouri Breaks National Monument has produced a colorful recreational hiking map and guide. This map is available free to the public. A PDF file on this web site will also offer the map. Tthe map may be picked up at the Friends office in Lewistown, BLM office in Great Falls, National Monument Interpretive Center in Fort Benton, BLM State Office in Billings, Billings Airport, MWA office in Great Falls and other location around Central Montana.
Friends hiking map front side Friends Hiking Map Front Side.
Friends hiking map back sideFriends Hiking Map Back Side
The Frank Hagadone Homestead
One of the better-preserved homestead sites in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument is the Frank Hagadone homestead. The main dwelling sits in quiet repose on the bench land close to the Missouri River. This small, single-story frame house began as a single room in 1918 and grew to its present size of three rooms in l924. Languishing nearby are a two-hole outhouse with attached tool shed and a storage shed made of saddle-notched ponderosa pine logs.
Further east, nearer the Missouri, is a row of sinuously twisted American elms. Frank Hagadone must have planted these to form the western boundary of his one-acre garden plot. A stately row of plains cottowoods stands to the east of the garden. Across a coulee is the barn, which still houses an old flat-bottomed riverboat.
From the west, the broad expanse of the river sweeps through walls of the Missouri Breaks, past the Hagadone homestead, and disappears around the bend. The prevailing winds follow the Missouri River east and emphasize the solitude of this remote setting.
The homestead is accessible only by boat or by hiking in from Whiskey Ridge on the river’s south side. The trail goes steeply downhill one and a half miles and follows the badly-eroded horse and wagon track that Frank Hagadone used to take his garden produce to market.
In July 2010, I was one of eight hikers to go to the Hagadone homestead. We began our hike in mid-morning and were at the homestead before noon. On the way down, we were awed by the vastness and austere beauty of the Missouri Breaks. At the homestead, we were rendered silent and mute as we explored Frank’s dwelling and outbuildings and envisioned the homesteader’s life on the banks of the Missouri River.For our lunch break, we sat in the shade of the huge cottonwoods next to the garden plot as the wind rustled the leaves above us. After further exploration along the banks of the Missouri, we began the climb back up to Whiskey Ridge. It is a steep climb for Frank’s horse and wagon of long ago, or for the modern hiker, but halfway up we were rewarded for our efforts by a band of twelve bighorn sheep that crossed our path and stopped to let us admire them.
Canoeing the Upper Missouri River Breaks
Canoeing the Upper Missouri River is probably the most popular
way to explore theUMRBNM. The river is classified as a CLASS ONE
canoe trip, meaning that there are no rapids. Canoeing the Upper
Missouri is similar to traveling on a lake, but with a 3 mph
current to help you along. The scenery is 
spectacular, and there
are abundant opportunities for wildlife sightings, off river
hiking, and camping in the shade of a
riversidecottonwood forest.
This is a wilderness canoe trip, that requires anywhere from 2-7
nights camping,and good preparation is essential, along with
continued vigilance for safety. The following links will help you
plan a canoe trip.
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U.S Bureau of Land Management - this is the website for BLM, the managing agency for the river. Their website offers good advice for paddlers who are planning a trip.
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A list of outfitters is available from the BLM and the Friends wildmissouri@q.com can provide recommendations and welcome inquiries.
Missouri Breaks Back Country Byway
The Missouri Breaks Back Country Byway was designated in 1993. The Byway has over 75 miles of gravel and unimproved roads that traverse portions of the Missouri River Breaks and lead the to scenic overlooks of the UMNSWR. Opportunities for mountain biking exist on the byway, and from the byway cyclists can take off onto spur roads or cross country. Click here for more information
There are no established trails in the monument, so hiking is done either cross-country, or on roads. But hikers should not let the word "road" mislead them - throughout the monument, unfortunately, there are networks of unauthorized roads - typically created by all-terrain vehicles that can offer direct routes along ridgetops and valley bottoms. Wildlife trails also offer an interesting way to explore on foot. Friends of the Missouri Breaks Monument is urging BLM to close these unofficial "roads" to continued motorized use.
Many hikes take off from the river campsites that are used by canoe parties. Among these are hikes to Neat Coulee (from Eagle Creek Camp), Hole-in-the-Wall (from Hole-in-the-Wall Camp), Lewis and Clark Overlook (from Bullwhacker Camp), Hagadone Homestead (from McKeever Rapids Camp), Moonscape and Woodhawk Coulee (from Lower Woodhawk Camp), and Brown Sandstone Ridge (from McGarry Bar Camp), to name a few.
The monument is steeped in history, and many historic sites exist, ranging from tipi rings associated with Native American encampments, to Lewis and Clark campsites, steamboat landings, fur trade posts and, and still-standing homestead buildings (many from the 1910 - 1920 period). The most popular and easy-to-reach are accessible to canoeists from the river. There are three resources available for learning about the historic sites:
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BLM Website that provides a brief overview of the river's history
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Montana's Wild and Scenic Upper Missouri River a 250 page guidebook for the river, available commercially.
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"Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument: The Wild and Scenic Missouri", by Rick Graetz, available from many shops or online booksellers. This book is a fine pictorial work on the monument.
Wildlife
& Hunting
in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument
The Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument is home to populations of game and non-game species. Hunters harvest birds, mule deer, elk, and antelope here during the Montana big game hunting season, using both rifle and bow. Hunters are strong supporters of the monument, and advocate for management policies that improve and conserve habitat. .... Learn more about hunting in the Breaks
Geology of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument
The geology of the Upper Missouri River is spectacularly exposed due to the combination of arid climate and downcutting by the river. Of particular note are the White Cliffs, composed of the Eagle Sandstone, and the Badlands, composed primarily of the Judith River Formation. ... More ...