By Billy Arnold
Jackson Hole News&Guide
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

JACKSON — Three years after a Montana-based glamping company expressed interest in developing a resort on Munger Mountain state trust land, Teton County will formally propose an alternative: a 35-year conservation lease.

The idea, largely developed by the Jackson Hole Land Trust and Friends of Munger Mountain, is to pay the state $75,000 annually — more than $2.6 million over those three and a half decades — to keep the parcel undeveloped.

In that time, the county would formalize a few hiking and biking trails on the square-mile parcel’s western edge, connect those trails to the Bridger-Teton National Forest’s existing trails on Munger, do some “aggressive weed mitigation” and maintain the Snake River Ranch’s existing grazing lease. The ranch pays the state $1,900 annually to use the parcel, the only money that Wyoming currently makes on the land.

“It’s a starting point, but it’s a really important starting point,” Land Trust Executive Director Max Ludington said. “It’s one that’s going to hopefully lead to a really successful outcome that leads to school funding in Wyoming and preserves the values people in Teton County and across the state of Wyoming see in that parcel.”

The 640 acres are adjacent to ranch land to the north and the Bridger-Teton National Forest to the south. The land is crucial winter habitat for elk and moose, adjacent to an elk calving area, and migratory route for elk moving between the forest, the Snake River bottom, and elk feedgrounds in South Park.

Over the past few decades, the Snake River Ranch has worked with the Land Trust to put about 950 acres of land in the area under conservation easement, protecting it from most development.

Wyoming manages state trust land to raise money for the Equality State’s K-12 schools. But Jackson Hole’s tracts of state land have been flashpoints since 2020, when the Wyoming Legislature directed state land managers specifically to maximize revenue from state trust land in Teton County. Along with the Kelly parcel, and the Highway 390 parcel, Munger Mountain was one of the three, square-mile parcels the state targeted in 2020 when it asked for proposals to develop and monetize the area’s state trust land.

In that process, Under Canvas, a Bozeman glamping outfit, submitted a glossy proposal calling for erecting upward of 90 seasonal tents on 30 to 40 acres of the Munger parcel and proposed entering into a 25-year lease. That pitch was preliminary but was met with firm resistance from county residents.

In the intervening years, the Office of State Lands and Investments has not issued a formal call for proposals for developing the Munger parcel. But it has taken action on the 390 parcel, which became embroiled in lawsuits, and the Kelly parcel, which could now be sold to Grand Teton National Park.

The Land Trust, Friends of Munger Mountain and county officials see the Munger proposal as an alternative to development and a way to improve the parcel while maintaining its ecological values.

Weed control work would be completed by Teton County Weed & Pest before trails are improved to keep hikers and bikers from spreading weeds when they recreate on the parcel.

The trail work would also focus solely on formalizing an existing, but somewhat rundown, trail network on the western edge. That’s an attempt to avoid prime elk habitat on the more easterly sides of the parcel. Winter access would be allowed, but trailheads would not be maintained to deter human use.

The idea is for Teton County to pay for the lease from an $8 million conservation fund voters approved in 2022, part of the county’s largest specific purpose excise tax ballot in history. If Teton County hasn’t collected the full $2.6 million by the time the proposal moves forward, officials say the county could bond against the larger fund to pay everything up front. Doing so would allow the Office of State Lands and Investments to invest the full sum of the conservation lease up front and generate $15.5 million in investment income over the life cycle of the project, according to proponents’ estimates.

The Teton County Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to submit the proposal to the state.

“I think it’s a good way for protecting wildlife habitat, providing outdoor recreation and generating more revenue for the schools,” Commission Chair Luther Propst said Thursday. “I’m a big fan of this, and I hope the State Board of Land Commissioners will also see the merit in it.”

Proponents hope to get the proposal in front of that board, which consists of Gov. Mark Gordon and four other statewide elected officials, over the summer. They will have the final say.

The proposal builds off the Pilot Hill lease in Albany County, where landowners agreed to sell 65,000 acres of shortgrass prairie foothills outside of Laramie to the University of Wyoming, Office of State Lands and Bureau of Land Management. The land is now split into a recreation area and a wildlife habitat management area, with the 4,200-acre recreation area leased for about $35,000 a year, Ludington said.