After several years in the making, horse and mule travelers now have two stock friendly campsites at the Pleasant Valley Campground near Libby.
This Forest Service campground is located 35 miles south of Libby on Highway 2 and is adjacent to the Historic Raven Ranger Station.
Cabinet Back Country Horsemen prepared, promoted and secured a Rural Community Development Grant to purchase materials and partnered with the Kootenai National Forest and the Troy High School Welding Class to construct the new campsites. Both sites are complete with pull-through parking areas, 20-by-40 foot metal corrals, metal feed racks, picnic tables and fire pits. As a complement to this project, the Forest Service and YCC constructed a new half-mile loop trail to access stock water on the Fisher River and provide easier access for campers.
The Cabinet Back Country Horseman is a small group of dedicated volunteers in the far northwest corner of Montana. As with all Back Country Horsemen, they have a mission to perpetuate the common sense use of horses in the back country and to assist government agencies with trail maintenance and development, upkeep and repair of recreational facilities.
As a volunteer organization, the Back Country Horsemen are often more successful in securing grant funding for projects than government agencies because they offer a skilled and free labor force that can “stretch the funds.” Cabinet Back Country Horsemen contributed over 300 person hours, 16 hours of tractor and welding equipment time, 16 hours of stock support to tread the trail, and partnered with the Troy High School Welding Class to construct the stock feeders for this project.