BRETT FRENCH | bfrench@billingsgazette.com
Recreationists, cabin owners and representatives of a remote church camp are frustrated with the Park County Commission over delays in repairing the last five miles of the Main Boulder Road.
Part of the problem is that as the gravel road passes Fourmile Guard Station it runs from Sweet Grass County into a remote part of Park County. Neglected by Park County road crews for years because of its location, the road deteriorated and, following the June 2022 flooding, is now in even worse shape.
“It’s beyond a noticeable difference where the county line stops,” said Bozeman resident D. Carson Cowles III, whose family owns a cabin and mining leases past the Box Canyon Trailhead. “You go from being able to have a decent ride, smooth ride, to the potholes immediately after Fourmile Bridge are 2-plus-feet deep.
“There is an area of the road before Box Canyon that is flooded, and has been flooded for multiple years now, and the water goes over the bumper on a standard truck,” he added.
About 25 miles south of Big Timber, the Main Boulder Road enters a mountain canyon. For the next 50 miles, the road follows the Boulder River south, weaving between Sweet Grass and Park counties.
The route is hugely popular in the summer, attracting as many as 5,000 people to summer cabins, church camps, Forest Service campgrounds and numerous hiking trails into the surrounding Custer Gallatin National Forest.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds were awarded to Park County for repairs of the damaged section of the Main Boulder Road, but the Park County Public Works director told commissioners in April the costs associated with engineering work on the road had significantly increased.
Running up against a use-it-or-lose-it federal funding deadline, the county decided to divert the Main Boulder Road funding to buy a new grader and put off the more extensive work required under FEMA oversight.
This is just one of several kinks in repairing the roadway.
“The largest issue we currently have to fixing the road is the weight limit on a bridge on the Main Boulder Road that is in Sweet Grass County,” Matt Whitman, Public Works director for Park County, wrote in an email.
The weight limit for the Flemming Bridge, located about 21 miles south of McLeod in Sweet Grass County, was downgraded following a state inspection. With the lower load limit, Whitman said it’s not practical for Park County to repair the road to Box Canyon.
Sweet Grass County is seeking to replace the bridge, with bid closing on June 9.
Even after Flemming Bridge is replaced, Park County will have to upgrade its Hilary Bridge, just a half-mile from Fourmile, to get heavy equipment to do the majority of the Main Boulder Road work.
The section of road in need of repair accesses several cabins, a popular Custer Gallatin National Forest trailhead, Hicks Park Campground and Christikon church camp. Pastor Julia Seymour, of the Big Timber Lutheran Church, told Park County Commissioners at their April 29 meeting that she’s concerned about emergency vehicles not being able to access the camp.
Seymour’s concerns are also personal, since her daughter, who likes to attend the camp, is a brain tumor survivor. Should she need help, she’d only have six hours to reach medical care.
“Deferred maintenance endangers everyone who is up the Boulder, not just the children at Christikon, but children and adults of all ages,” Seymour said. “I really, really discourage you, not only from deferring or reallocating these FEMA funds, but from deferring the maintenance anymore.”
Cowles said his family’s attempts to have a new well drilled at their cabin across from Christikon following the 2023 flood have been stalled because drillers don’t want to drive the deteriorated section of road. Septic pump trucks and propane deliveries are also threatened by the road’s deteriorating condition.
His family also owns the mining ghost town of Independence, 5 miles past the Box Canyon Trailhead, which is only accessible to four-wheel drive and all-terrain vehicles. The road then continues another four miles to Blue Lake, which sits at an elevation of 9,400 feet.
Park County closed the road in January 2024 to recreational vehicles after two bridges failed, one during the 2022 flood, the second the following year.
“There’s hundreds, if not thousands, of people that use this road to access the (Absaroka-Beartooth) wilderness every year,” Cowles said. “It is an incredibly popular four-wheeling road.”
Lloyd Rue, of the Sweet Grass County Recreation Association, is one of those who for 50 years has used the bumpy route to the old mining camp for hiking, biking and snowmobiling.
Rue’s group has been pleading with Park County commissioners to take action since the 2022 flood, not only to repair the bridges on the four-wheel drive road, but also on the main route to the trailhead.
“There’s one corner up there now that the elevation of the center line of the road, because it’s now so far down, it’s probably 6 or 8 inches below the ordinary high-water mark,” Rue said. “It won’t take much of a big runoff year that it’s going to collapse the bank and take the road out.”
Whitman, the Park County Public Works director, said his crews also can’t replace the four-wheel drive road’s bridges until Sweet Grass County replaces its bridge.
“We have received funding from the state to replace the two collapsed bridges and currently have Stahly Engineering working on survey and design,” Whitman said in an email. “We will need to perform a large amount of maintenance to the Main Boulder Road to get equipment to the collapsed bridges. This work will need to be paid for entirely from Park County’s road operating budget. Before Box Canyon this will involve grading and adding gravel. After Box Canyon it will involve a bulldozer and excavator and most likely no additional gravel.”
The delays by Park County have Rue, Cowles and others feeling like their pleas have gone ignored for too long.
“Montana law says counties don’t have to maintain roads if they are not in the budget, but they have to keep them safe and passable,” Cowles said.
Rue said Park County was negligent in not maintaining the bridges south of Box Canyon, blaming past commissioners for leaving the current three members with a bad situation.
Park County Commissioner Mike Story said in the April meeting that he hopes without the constrictions imposed by using FEMA funding that the county will have an easier time completing the road work. For now, however, when that work may begin is still unknown.
