Trail Work Begins on Taylor Hellroaring Project

A decade after groups started brainstorming ways to build a trail system connecting Haskill Basin to Werner Peak in the Whitefish Range, crews last month began trail work on the Taylor Hellroaring Project adjacent to Whitefish Mountain Resort.

In a partnership with the Tally Lake Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest, Flathead Area Mountain Bikers (FAMB), Whitefish Legacy Partners and Whitefish Mountain Resort (WMR), officials plan to build more than 20 miles of nonmotorized trail.

The Whitefish Face Working Group began meeting in 2014 to help launch a trail building project and the Flathead National Forest’s initial scoping began in 2017 followed by the completion of an environmental assessment in 2019. Timber harvest and fuel management has ensued in recent years as part of the Good Neighbor Authority, a state and federal partnership that promotes healthy forests.

Tally Lake District Ranger Bill Mulholland said there’s roughly 1,500 acres of vegetative management, 500 acres slated for prescribed burns and 3,000 acres of hazardous fuel reduction with timber harvest, thinning, sawing and piling that began in recent years. The area has not seen a significant wildfire in recent history.

“The next part is working with FAMB to talk about implementation of 25 miles of trail,” Mulholland said.

Trail crews with FAMB, Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) and Tally Lake Ranger District in August began clearing the Ralph Thayer Memorial Trail, which is also known as the Whitefish Divide Trail and was decommissioned several decades ago – leaving it neglected and overgrown.

FAMB Executive Director Ron Brandt said that after a summer of scoping and flagging new trail, he has observed a slew of deadfall and overgrown vegetation.

“There’s a lot of huckleberries – it goes through logging zones and other sections that weren’t logged and there’s spots where the brush is crazy,” Brandt said.

Crews started on the Ralph Thayer Memorial Trail near Hellroaring Peak just beyond the WMR boundary and have since completed almost 2 miles of work, clearing more than 120 obstructing trees.

“Once you get beyond [Hellroaring Peak], the trail is pretty established, but the underbrush and dead trees have really taken over,” Brandt said.

Just over 5 miles of the Ralph Thayer Memorial Trail extending through Hellroaring Basin will be revamped as part of the 22-mile singletrack extending to Werner Peak. In the next phase, 15 miles of two new directional trails will be built from Taylor Creek Road that FAMB will design to alleviate user conflicts.

With plans to contract with private trail builders, Brandt says work to build the two new trails is expected to begin next year and is slated for completion over the next two to three years.

“We’re pretty stoked on this project and it’s going to be a big part of what we do for the next five to six years,” Brandt said.

The trails will eventually connect to the Holbrook Overlook Trail, the Whitefish Trail’s recent addition of 3.5 miles of loop trails completed in 2021 and are located south of Hellroaring Basin near the base of WMR.

Whitefish Legacy Partners Executive Director Heidi Van Everen said the trail group has been working with the state and federal partners and private landowners to continue adding more easements and trail connections to the Whitefish Trail.

“These Taylor Hellroaring trails will connect from Smith Lake over to the Holbrook Overlook,” Van Everen said. “Some of these community trails closest to Whitefish Mountain Resort will bring people down to the Whitefish Trail, which will be the conduit back to the mountain. Our low elevation trail is a key connection for these community trails up to the ridge.”

“We are really excited to have a community partner like the Forest Service and FAMB to celebrate this,” Van Everen said. “We are taking our community to a whole new level with outdoor recreation and trails.”

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