| President's
Message |
Officers and Directors |
Greetings ESBCH Members,
On July 13th 6 members (Clete, Patsy, Joe, Helen, Marty and Bob) of the East Slope Back Country Horsemen met at Swift Dam for a work project. It was decided at our last meeting on July 12th that Helen and wood be the cook for the project with Patsy helping.
and LeAnn lending a hand on Saturday when she got there. On Saturday Bob reported that Clete, Joe, Marty and himself worked on three wash outs on the south side of North
Fork of Birch Creek, but the previous wash out that we fixed last year held up relatively well and looked pretty good. These additional washouts were fixed and it was also noted
that on the south side of
Birch Creek, the hill side is starting to slide. This area is approximately 100 feet long and there was about 6 inches of mud covering the trail.
This might be a concern in the years to come. Where riders are
going off trail, so they cut trees and stacked brush on the
area.
On Sunday Marty, Lisa and Bob went to look for the Old North
Fork trail. Fred gave Bob the coordinates of where he was
thinking the trail started. So once they got on top they
could see the start of the trail.
They were able to find a route down to a decent crossing on the
North Fork of Birch Creek where the Bob Marshall and Reservation
boundaries are.
On August 3rd members Ron and Debbie along with Debbie's sister
Cathy and Ron's brother Vincent who were recruited to help with
the Poker Ride and Bob, LeAnn and Fred met at Swift Dam. On
Saturday Bob, Vincent and Fred rode up the North Fork of Birch
Creek with the intentions of flagging the old trail on the south
side of the North Fork of Birch Creek and allowing people in the
poker ride to use the trail if the wished to do so. Well after
getting to the start of the trail and cutting out a couple of
downed logs to provide access to the trail we started flagging
and things were going pretty well until we got almost to the
upper end and we lost the old trail and after wondering around
and Bob checking his GPS from two weeks ago we were able to
connect back up to the trail and continue to where the old trail
intersects with the trail that goes behind the reservoir. So we
decided that we are going to have to do some more exploration and
flagging of the trail so that people are able to use it and we
decided that it would not be feasable to use the trail during
the poker ride.
As always, when in doubt let your horse do the thinkn Fred
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To see the meeting minutes from
the last meetings, see the link under Chapter Information. |
President:
Fred Fitzpatrick
Vice President:
Ronald Ries
Secretary/Treasurer:
LeAnn Hermance
State Directors:
Merlyn Huso
Bob Hermance
Alt. State Director:
Ronald Ries
Chapter Directors:
Clete Gregory
Lisa Schmidt
Zane Drishinski
Dennis Garcia
Debbie Ries
Kurt Dyer
Junior Director:
Abbey Hutton
Editors:
LeAnn Hermance
Fred Fitzpatrick
Website:
Fred Fitzpatrick
BCHMT Chairman:
Rich Carl
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Birthdays |
August
No Birthdays
September
Patsy Gregory, Joshua Snow, Beau Lindberg, Marsha McCubbins and Haylee Nieman
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2018 Poker Ride
On August 5, 2018 the East Slope ack Country Horsemen held their annual Poker Ride at Swift Dam. With the absence of members Joe and Helen Suta who unfortunatley had a tragedy in their family
with the passing of Joe's sister's husband on Wednesday before the poker ride. So with the idea that we would be caught short handed we were able to get some extra help with Debbie's sister Cathy and two of her friends
Myra and Mechelle along with Ron's brother Vincent. So our helpers all turned out to be a great asset and it was nice having the extra help all though I am not quite sure about the part
of Ron's brother Vincent winning the poker ride. Anyway we had a real good turn out and the weather couldn't have been any better as it wasn't to hot and we had a few clouds and some sushine.
The breakdown on the Poker Ride from LeAnn is as follows: 116 hands at $10 - $1160.00 prize paid out 1st $150.00 Vincent Ries, 2nd $100 Ralph Diedrich and 3rd $75.00 Marlene Sanborn, Whitehall. Balance $835.00
Food and donation $246.00
Auction $390.00. The auction was great fun as always with the help of our own
clown and auctioneer, Z-Man. Anyway a great big Thank You to all
the members who were able to attend and help with the poker ride
and Thanks to all our great sponsors who unselfishley donated
prizes for the poker ride.
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| Of Interest! |
Fire Season is Here
With a relatively dry July we are in the midst of another fire season.
What started as a small fire in the Northwest part of the state in the Kootenai National Forest has escalated into twenty fires burning within the state of Montana including two fires in Glacier National Park
and one in Yellowstone National Park along with one in the Big Belt Mountains on the Beartooth Wildlife Management area and also the Litle Belt Mountains and eveything in between.
A majority of these fires were started last Sartuday night when a dry thunder storm passed through the area. With one of the largest and most severe fires raging right here in our area being the Howe Ridge Fire in Glacier National Park.
The latest report issued this week from the National Interagency Fire Center is predicting a "significant" fire season for much of the Northwest, extending into Northwest Montana. The Kootenai and Lower Clark Fork Basins in particular look to have a significant risk of wildfire.
Fire danger across the rest of Western and Southwestern Montana is forecast to be increasing to "above normal" levels during the late summer.
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Keep Updated on Fire Information
As we reported to you in the June Newsletter on the new Iniweb Site. Here is
the information again.
“You can watch a short video highlighting the new website and how to navigate
it at
https://youtu.be/PlhkowgqqmQ
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document and other InciWeb information is
also available at
https://www.nifc.gov/PIO_bb/inciweb.html
Special thanks to Christine Schuldheisz, Public Affairs Specialist for the
USDA Forest Service Washington Office Fire and Aviation Management Program,
who led the effort to redesign the InciWeb public site - those of you who have
been involved with these types of projects know how difficult and time
consuming they are. If you have any questions or need more information, please
contact Christine at cmschuldheisz@fs.fed.us
or 208-387-5145 thanks!
INCIWEB WEBSITE: https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/
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