U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke met with members of the Montana Nightriders Snowmobile Club in Haugan last week to hear about their valiant effort to repair and bring the Saltese Trestle up to safety standards to motorized and non-motorized traffic. The trestle has always been open, but rehab work is needed.

“I’ve been involved in the entire railroad grade since the trains went out,” shared Brooke Lincoln owner of the $50,000 Bar/Café and is the Trestle Committee Chair. “The trestle specifically, has been on our radar for about 15 years, the last 10 of which we have been in the process of purchasing it.” Lincoln explained to Zinke that the club owns the trestle, finally, but it has taken 10 years with the interest added onto the $25,000 price tag to purchase it. In 2013 it was bought by a private entity. And then sold to another private entity which was going to tear down the trestle and sell it for scrap.

“I promise you this. We do not want to own this trestle,” she told Congressman Zinke. “The reason we own the trestle is if it had been turned over to the Forest Service, they would have put a gate up on both ends. And it would not have been any kind of a priority to get this thing rehabilitated.”

The original plan was that once everything is completed (engineering, land transfers, structural restoration, etc.) the club will bequeath it into either state or federal ownership as public domain. It will be safe and maintained from that point because it’s a four-season, year-round use, trail system with the trestle being the king pin.

The Montana Nightriders Snowmobile Club is 50 years old with about 250 members. They are volunteers who donate hundreds and hundreds of hours to maintain 125 miles of snowmobile trails through grooming, forestry road management, litter pickup, maintaining a warming shed in Taft for all to use while encouraging safe and responsible snowmobiling.

All of this while promoting accessibility to all of our public lands by organizing poker runs and riding their machines in the most beautiful portion of the Big Sky Country.

Zinke assured the two dozen club members at the meeting that he believes the Forest Service roads need to open up for timber health and harvest, plus the recreation opportunities in these closed areas is an untapped mecca.

“If we lose that trestle, we lose our whole system because it’s over an incredibly steep ravine,” Lincoln said. “To get around it you have multiple private landowners as the townsite of Saltese has many 20-foot lots, like many small older towns do. Also, there would be I-90 and Northwest Energy to work through with a substation,” she continued before dropping the $1.6 million price tag to Zinke that is needed to finish this project up once and for all.

The price of rehabbing might have been over-engineered, said Zinke.

“You got to watch sometimes with the federal regulations. They go to engineering standards which can be too much. They might ask ‘Look, are you going to bring a 50-ton machine across that thing?’ Absolutely not! ‘Then why are you applying for that much money in a grant?’, they’ll ask, so, yes, we can help you with the grant process. I’ll see what I can do to fix this as I’m on your side.”

He said the club needs to act quickly on the paperwork as the appropriations are within weeks. Also, he said his staff will work with Gov. Greg Gianforte as some of the money will be match and the state should assist. Zinke said that one the newest members to his staff was a former CEO of a credit union who understands the grant system very well.

His staff and several members then drove to Saltese for Zinke to see for himself the trestle and how it could not only be of value to snowmobilers but it will also connect the Route of the Olympian and the Mineral County Rails to Trails project to Idaho. He took a keen interest in the large machines the club uses to make the trails safe and exciting for snowmobilers.

Brennan Teeters, president of the club pointed to the two groomers the club owns, one is a 1982 model and the other a 1992, and then the 2016 model that Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has loaned them that retails for $450,000.

“The state gives out machines to different clubs all over the state and we were in line for one, so this one is ours,” he explained.

All grooming equipment is extremely well maintained and housed in a covered building year-round. A ride in a groomer to the top of the trestle and back completed the tour with a new shot of energy of completing the project that has been years of work for a devoted group of snowmobilers.