Private roads VS Public in Montana

[wswat]

Was hunting in eastern Montana and was going to go down a County road according to my GPS but half way down there was a sign that said private drive. Now I have the chip in my GPS that shows all public land and roads so is it possible it is wrong or is it a greedy land owner trying to keep people off public?

 

[MThuntr]

depends...I'd wager that some of the roads marked public were either mismarked or abandoned by the state/county. That being said we have a lot of people here in MT that think they own a road just because they live next to it.

I have a gazetteer that shows roads that are very obviously not public.

 

[CabinFever]

Its hard to tell which are supposed to be public or not. No doubt some landowners have gated roads that probably shouldn't be, but I know often time landowners end up maintaining roads that the county should be as well. The new FS maps highlight FS right of way access roads, which is somewhat helpful but there's still plenty of others that you never know if you'll be able to drive them until you actually go there-quite frustrating. I think the only way to find out if a road is public or private ownership is to go to the courthouse and dig into it.

I heard a pretty good story of an aquaintance who found a road gated by a landowner, went to the courthouse and found out that it was a county road. He went back and cut the chain and drove through, meanwhile the LO tears over to stop him. He stops and listens to the LO chew him out telling him its private, so he explains he went to the courthouse and knows its public and he's going to go hunt public land. The LO is very upset so the guys says to him that either he can let him go by, or he'll go back and tell everyone he knows so the rest of the state will drive up there, rolls up his window as the ranchers face turns into a turnip and drives on through. So now he has access to land that most everyone thinks is inaccessible.

 

[antlerradar]

I bet I know the road. I have researched the road and could not find it on the county records. The GPS is not correct if it is the road I am thinking of. Your GPS should show the road turning north and making a loop back to the county road. In reality it is a dead end and there has never been a Car bridge on the north end. I also Know the landowner, one of the only ones left in the area that does not take any money for hunting, and he is not very happy about the GPS. More than a few times people have showed up at his door late at night asking how to get back to the county road. This is the reason the sign went up. He once told me he needs to put up another sign that reads " Your GPS is wrong.

Antlerradar

 

[wswat]

No there is no farm on the road

 

[Poke 'Em]

There are certainly instances of the GPS being wrong.

 

[JWP58]

Happens to me all the time. In ID and WY. Its pretty frustrating when you drive 20miles down a dirt road for it only to turn in to a "private drive" miles before the area you wanted to get too.

Almost as frustrating as the public land surrounded by private. Pretty sweet deal for the land owner though....they get theirs and ours.

 

[WapitiBob]

Depending on the situation, it can be pretty hard for the map guys to distinguish between pvt and public, especially when the road is county, then becomes pvt but continues on thru the pvt and eventually hits public, again becoming county public. The huntinggps maps are basically a land ownership map, not a "road ownership" map and unless the governing body makes the road ownership distinction on their own GIS datasets, the map guys will never know.