Montana ‘Mountain Man’ Sues US Forest Service To Protect His Private Property, Road Contract

Wilkins has called Montana home for more than 40 years. He bought his property, just over nine acres adjacent to the Bitterroot National Forest, in 2004. When he bought the property, surrounded by pine trees and with plentiful birds and wildlife, it corresponded to a vision he’d had his entire life.

“I’ve always had a desire, always had in my mind this picture-perfect place, where I’m living on this valley floor and I look across and I see the mountain ridges, and then up above all of it is a snow-capped granite mountain peak,” he says. “That’s just my ideal of the perfect place to live — and that is exactly where I live. I can walk out in my front yard and I can look to the northwest, and right there is Trapper Peak with a 10,000-foot snowcap mountain peak. And then in front of that, you have the rolling hills and it comes right on down to the river.”

Outside his front door sits Robbins Gulch Road, built and maintained by the U.S. Forest Service, the result of a limited easement granted to the Forest Service by the property’s previous owners in 1962. That agreement permitted the Forest Service to build and maintain this unpaved access road through the private property, now owned by Wilkins and his few neighbors along the road, into the national forest, primarily for purposes of timber harvesting and general maintenance.

Importantly, the 1962 easement did not grant access for general public use — the road was to be for Forest Service employees and permitees only. When he bought his spread, Wilkins wasn’t entirely enthused to have the road on his property. But since the easement agreement restricted the road’s usage, he figured he could live with it.

Unfortunately, it soon became clear the government was not abiding by the terms of the original agreement. Wilkins says that after the Forest Service posted signs encouraging public use of the road for visitors seeking entry to the national forest, traffic and parking increased dramatically. Wilkins and his neighbor have endured trespassing on their property and even theft — someone stole a pair of elk horns he had mounted on his porch. One of his neighbor’s dogs was killed by a speeding driver, and at one point someone shot Wilkins’ cat (which survived).

Wilkins reviewed the easement agreement, which clearly designated Robbins Gulch Road as a right-of-way for limited use. But discussions with the Forest Service to get the agency to honor its agreement were fruitless. Wilkins hasn’t forgotten the response from a district ranger: “He crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, looked at me and he started laughing,” Wilkins recalls. “He said, ‘Wil, you can always sue us.’ And that’s when I said to myself, ‘OK then, I will.’”

Wilkins connected with Pacific Legal Foundation and we’re helping him and his neighbor, Jane Stanton, to defend their property rights. We’ve reached the Supreme Court after years of litigation to stop the Forest Service from abusing the easement to effectively take their land without compensation — a clear violation of their constitutional property rights.

Wilkins notes he’s not asking for special treatment; he just wants the government to agree to “what they wrote and said they would do.”