By Jason Stuart
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
Work is underway to expand the trail opportunities in Makoshika State Park and planning is underway for other projects designed to enhance the park’s appeal and the visitor experience.
On Friday morning, a 75-person strong volunteer group from the Mormon church began work to complete the Buccaneer Trail, which runs between Makoshika and Dawson Community College. Park staff have been working the last couple of years to re-establish the old trail.
“The Buc Trail in the park’s done, but that’s it,” said Makoshika manager Chris Dantic, noting that while park staff and volunteers have completed the trail through park property, the sections which run through property belonging to DCC and the Bureau of Land Management have not had any work done on them yet.
The Mormon volunteer group is working on the section of the trail on DCC property. The last unfinished section will be the small swath of BLM property the trail crosses.
“So we’ll have the park section done and the DCC section done,” Dantic said.
Dantic needs the BLM to survey the trail route where it crosses their property and sign off on the construction of it. There has been a delay in getting the proper BLM officials out to the site, but Dantic said he is working with the agency and hopes to have it done this fall. He noted all he needs is the BLM’s official blessing to proceed and park staff will take care of the rest.
“We’ll do the digging, because we’ve got the money,” he said.
Dantic is extremely enthusiastic about getting the Buccaneer Trail completed and open for hiking along its entire length. Besides expanding the park’s hiking opportunities, he said he thinks the trail can benefit DCC as well.
“It’s going to be awesome, because DCC can advertise that, can put it in their brochures,” he said.
The view along the trail is something to behold as well, with beautiful and fantastic examples of badlands formations, according to Dantic.
“It’s cool. The features in there are just super awesome, so I’m excited to get people in there so they can see those landforms,” he said.
Besides the Buccaneer Trail, Dantic has several other projects at varying stages of development underway in the park.
Work continued this week on the historic McCarty Cabin, as a crew led by Montana State Parks historic preservation expert Scott Harvey put some more touches on it, including new shutters for the windows, a new front door and some more fresh paint.
“We’re just trying to secure it a little bit more,” Harvey said. “We’ve got it dry and stable and I’m pretty happy with where it’s at.”
“It looks nice,” Dantic said of the work the crew did on the cabin this week.
That will, however, likely wrap up work on the cabin for the time being. What the cabin will be used for — as an overnight guest rental, an interpretive center, or whatever else State Parks can come up with — remains to be seen.
Before that can be finalized, the road to the cabin needs to be improved, a parking area built and a toilet facility installed at the cabin site, but Dantic has no more funding at present for the cabin project.
“Anything else is going to be further down the road,” he said.
Makoshika’s celebrated disc golf course is also slated for upgrades, as well as a major upgrade in stature. A crew from the Montana Conservation Corps will be arriving in the park in September to do work on the disc golf course along with some other trail work.
Dantic said the goal of the work slated for the disc golf course is to get it up to “Blue Level” ranking by the Professional Disc Golf Association. Dantic said he is already in contact with the PDGA about hosting regional competitions on the Makoshika disc golf course once it has attained that “Blue Level” ranking.
Other projects are slated to get underway next year. The tepee currently sitting at the group use shelter will be moved to a campsite next year, where it will be permanently set up and made available for overnight rental to park visitors.
“A lot of other parks do it, so why can’t we do it?” Dantic said about setting the tepee up for guest camping.
Finally, Dantic said the entrance road project is slated to get underway next summer, though he has no other details at present. The 2017 Legislature appropriated $2.1 million to Makoshika to rebuild the park entrance road up to the ‘switchbacks’ section.
Reach Jason Stuart at rrreporter@rangerreview.com.
