Talk:Sleeping Giant Wilderness Study Area

Restored article

A previous version of this article was deleted after being created by a sockpuppet account that established incorrect authorship attribution in violation of Wikipedia guidelines. The current article, created on 3 July 2010, creates accurate authorship attribution under copyright guidelines. - Tim1965 (talk) 17:04, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Beartooth

Why is the Beartooth Mtn here when Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness (which I've hiked in) is way southeast of there? — Rlevse • Talk • 01:41, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

• Because on the BLM map, that's the name of the mountain. And the state's Beartooth Wildlife Management Area is across the river from Sleeping Giant WSA. (There's also "Beartooth Landing" right there on Missouri. I've fished off it, and it's on the BLM map, too.) There is a much more famous Beartooth Mountain down in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. But frankly, there's "Beartooth" moutains, hills, ridges, valleys, ravines, buttes, and whatnots all over the state of Montana. (We need to get more inventive with naming the state's various features!) - Tim1965 (talk) 15:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Huh. When I lived there the only Beartooth I knew was near Red Lodge, the Beartooth Wilderness Area. I never knew it was such a popular name. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Even those of us who live in the state find this confusing. There is the Beartooth Wildlife Management Area by the Sleeping Giant, then the Beartooth Wilderness ovr by Red Lodge, but then the mountain a lot of people call "The Bear's Tooth" is considered to be a peak near Livingston. And then there is the Bearmouth, over by Missoula (noted for a bar and campground). And then, of course, there are the bears themselves.

Oh, and on that note, if you think the Beartooth thing is bad, I think there are two "Sheep Mountains" within about 30 miles of each other! Also, count all the streams named "Dry Creek"!!! =:-O Montanabw^(talk) 21:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

• I won't begin to try to number all the "Bald Mountains" in Montana... Ugh. There is also a behind-the-scenes debate going on about whether there were Lakota Blackfoot at the Little Bighorn. (This is thanks to Nathaniel Philbrick's new book, which calls one sub-tribe "Blackfoot" but which has a bunch of folks up near Cut Bank really unhappy.) - Tim1965 (talk) 00:23, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I can actually help you with that one. There IS a "BlackFOOT Sioux" sub-band. There is also a BlackFEET nation that is a completely different tribe that are the folks who live by Browning. And people do get this all confused. (Blackfeet people, for example, generally do not want to be called Blackfoot, though some take a "potayto-potahto" attitude.) Somewhere buried in my bookshelves I might have a source. As for if that particular Sioux sub-band was at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, I don't know. I'm pretty sure the group was within the Lakota branch of the Sioux (as opposed to the Dakota or Nakota) I believe there is another name for that band which, if I can find my stuff, might clarify matters. If you toss me a link to the discussion, I can try to weigh in there if I can find what is needed. Montanabw^(talk) 03:59, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

"Protected"?

Is the Sleeping Giant WSA "protected"? Yes. Not as protected as legally-designated wilderness, but protected. So I would re-add the term "protected" where it was edited out.

I struggle with how to identify the land the WSA protects. I want to call it a wilderness, even though it is not "legal wilderness." Calling it a "forest" doesn't work, because only about half the area is forested. Ditto for "plains" or "hills". Definining it as "an area" isn't descriptive. (And endlessly repeating "wilderness study area" is clunky. It also only addresses the legal definition, and does not physically describe the area.) Does anyone else have any ideas how to resolve this? (Perhaps I'm being nit-picky and it's not an issue at all.) - Tim1965 (talk)

I'll dink around with the wording used in some other sources, you are right that it has some protections, though fewer than one thinks. "Area" is probably as good as you can get, unfortunately. It really isn't "plains", "mixed forest and grassland" works, though the goat rocks on top contain neither. I think officially it is "steep and irregular topography, about half of which is forested." "Wilderness" is a term of art as well as a legally-defined word with a specific meaning. It's not a wilderness until the US Government says it is.  :-P Comparable concept would be what is "organic" food: I might raise my food without herbicides or pesticides, but it's not "organic" until a government agency tells me that it is (and because my neighbor, "chemical Ali," inevitably sprays his lawn for everything, the potential for drift means I'll probably never be able to certify my garden, even though he's downwind!) What we have with a place like this is that it is managed as potential wilderness. Out here, we are sort of used to the lingo, it's awkward, but it's accurate. In the case of this specific area, it can't really even be called "roadless" because there are old roads there they are trying to get rid of, but it IS being managed as wilderness in hopes that it will be added to the Wilderness system some day. In the meantime, everyone fights over whether to let motorcycles and ATVs in there, and oil and gas people want to drill. Welcome to the wild west.  :-P Montanabw^(talk) 21:08, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Acreage

Where did the 11,000 acres figure come from? When I was drafting this article, I almost made the mistake of using the combined Sleeping Giant/Sheep Creek acreage (which is 10,454 acres) instead of just the Sleeping Giant acreage (which p. 295 of Chapter 3 of the BLM draft management plan says explicitly is 6,666 acres. I thought about writing an article about the combined WSAs, but couldn't find anything about Sheep Creek. - 00:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

My source of the 11,000 is that BLM summary site: [1] Maybe they need to get their summary coordinated with their details! ;-) Your source is probably better, I'm home on the dialup this weekend which means the PDF will take a half hour to download for me to look over your source and see if there was anything unclear. So for now, I'll take your word for it. Montanabw^(talk) 03:59, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Ming Bar

Is the southern edge of the Sleeping Giant WSA about equal with Ming Bar on the eastern side of Holter Lake? You betcha. See the BLM map. - Tim1965 (talk) 00:32, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

That map states that it's the "Travel management area". I cannot find a map of the actual Sleeping Giant WSA unless the Travel Management Map's marked BLM land--all of it -- is the same as the WSA, and that I do not know. If the travel management map = the WSA, then I agree for the southeast edge is across the river from the Ming Bar, but you also have the Hilger ranch lands to the south... I ought to see if I can find a big print map of all this so we aren't stumbling around in the dark here. Montanabw^(talk) 03:59, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

• The reason why the southern boundary has to be roughly equal with Ming Bar and Hilger Valley is because the Sleeping Giant itself is located inside the WSA's boundaries. And that's in Range 3 West, Township 11 North, Square 10—roughly equal with the Ming Bar. And square 10 (in either Township 11 N or Township 13 N) is the square due north of Hilger Valley. - Tim1965 (talk) 12:49, 11 July 2010 (UTC)