Brothers plan to open Bullwhacker

Staff and wire report

Access to 50,000 acres of federal land in the Upper Missouri River Breaks in north-central Montana soon will be reopened to the public.

Dan and Farris Wilks announced in a press release that Bullwhacker Road in Blaine County, located on the Anchor Ranch owned by the brothers, will be opened from Sept. 1 through Jan. 1.

A 2011 court ruling in favor of the previous owners of the ranch kept the road closed to public access.

In a show of goodwill to Montana hunters and the Bureau of Land Management, Farris Wilks said in last week’s press release that the road will be opened as BLM considers a land exchange with the BLM which the Wilks proposed to consolidate their ranch holdings in Fergus County.

The proposal is still pending review by the BLM.

The agency has said that one motivation for entertaining the land exchange is restoring public access to the BLM land.

A previous proposal by the Wilks brothers, who made much of their fortune in oil development and developing and selling hydraulic fracturing technology such as is used in the Bakken Formation in northeastern Montana and eastern North Dakota, died on the table. The brothers offered swapping the road and other land with the BLM in exchange for BLM-owned land including the Durfee Hills, a popular hunting area in the midst of the Wilks brothers’ land in Fergus County.

BLM took the Durfee Hills out of the proposal after a major hue and cry arose about the land going into private hands, effectively killing the swap.

A press release from the Wilks brothers says that during the opening of Bullwhacker Road, all visitors are reminded to remain on the roadway at all times on private ground. BLM travel restrictions also prohibit off road travel. All hunters must sign in at the gate. Hunters not signed in will be in violation of hunting without permission. People are asked to close all gates unless they have been wired open or signed. Camping is not allowed on private land, and people are asked to be careful when parking vehicles in tall vegetation due to the extreme fire hazard.