Wilderness, WSAs and RWAs

The Wilderness Act

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” 

When the Wilderness Act was signed into law in 1964 motorized and mechanized transport was banned in these areas.  This ban did not include bikes until 1984 when the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society convinced the Forest Service to change the definition of "mechanized transport."  The critical change was the inclusion of the phrase, "powered by a living or nonliving power source."

Mechanical Transport. Any contrivance for
moving people or material in or over land, water, or air, having moving parts, that provides a mechanical advantage to the user, and that is powered by a living or nonliving power source.
This includes, but is not limited to, sailboats, hang gliders, parachutes, bicycles, game carriers, carts, and wagons. It does not include wheelchairs when used as necessary medical appliances. It also does not include skis, snowshoes, rafts, canoes, sleds, travois, or similar primitive devices without moving parts

WSAs and RWAs

IN 1977 congress passed the Montana Wilderness Study Act designating 700,000 acres as Wilderness Study Areas.  These include the Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo Horn, Big Snowies, Ten Lakes, Blue Joint, Sapphires, Middle Fork Judith, and the West Pioneer mountains. 

These areas are protected from development and managed to maintain their wilderness potential as it existed in 1977.  Until recently portions of these areas that allowed motorized use also allowed mountain bikes, but over the last decade these areas have one by one been closed to bikes, despite a lack of evidence that we were having any measurable impact.

During the Forest Planning process the National Forest assess the land under their management for it's wilderness potential. Any  areas that it identifies with having adequate wilderness potential is designated as recommended wilderness.  


In Montana these areas are now being closed to bikes during the Travel Planning Process.  The logic being that since bikes are not allowed in wilderness, they should not be allowed in areas with wilderness potential to prevent non conforming uses.

WSAs and RWAs can overlap. Several of the WSAs did not qualify as an RWA when studied by the National Forest. For example in the Bitterroot, the Sapphire WSA and the southern half of the Blue Joint WSA were determined to be lacking in wilderness potential.  Leading to the bizarre result of land that was determined to not have wilderness character being closed to bikes to maintain the area's wilderness potential.