SUBLETTE COUNTY—Standing amid sagebrush on slopes offering soaring views of Wyoming’s highest peaks and second-largest lake, Ryan Grove made his case for why Skyline Drive is the right place to put Pinedale’s first singletrack trail system designed for mountain bikers like himself.
What’s standing in his way? Mule deer, elk and moose.
The native ungulates that dwell and migrate through the same spot have wildlife advocates and managers worried and urging proponents to build the 18 miles of trails elsewhere. But Grove, a local physician assistant who volunteers to lead the Sublette Trails Association, doesn’t believe there needs to be a tradeoff.
“This parcel has high wildlife value and high recreation value,” Grove said from the scenic site where the proposed trails would go. “We think that those two things don’t have to be exclusive.”
Grove’s aspirations for coexistence were directed at Jason West, a Lander resident and avid big game hunter who’s less excited about the association’s proposed location for its flagship project.
On April 10, he ventured around the Wind River Range for a conversation about the merits of a project he’s contesting. Through a volunteer board role with the Wyoming Mule Deer Alliance, West is among those behind a petition to the Bureau of Land Management. Signatories want the trail’s approval process to be transparent and the BLM to be mindful of potential impacts to thousands of migrating mule deer.
Overlooking Fremont Lake, Grove and West hiked and tried to talk things out. On several occasions, they bumped into mule deer along the way.
“We’re not trying to target you in an outsized way,” West said. “At the end of this, no matter what happens, when I walk into Pine Coffee someday and I see you there, I’ll be like, ‘Hey, Ryan, what’s up?’”
Grove vowed the same: “For sure,” he said. “I feel the same way.”
A shared desire for cordial relations did not ensure they could talk their way past a fundamental disagreement. It’s either the right place for a mountain bike trail network, or it’s not.
Long time coming
Setting off on their walk through the 600-acre BLM parcel, Grove recounted the history of a project the Sublette Trails Association has been pursuing for several years.
“There’s 600-some miles of trail in Sublette County,” he said. “The vast majority of it exists in the wilderness. You’re not allowed to ride a bike on it, it’s not really accessible for folks from town.”
Three years ago, with Wyoming Pathways and the Ruckelshaus Institute, the small nonprofit helped put on a “trail charrette” — essentially a planning meeting that brought different user groups together to talk about expanding frontcountry, nonmotorized recreation opportunities.
Participants got together and visited the potential trail system sites, according to a Ruckelshaus Institute report. At the time, however, plans were geared toward building the singletrack in Tyler Draw, which is southwest of town near where the Pinedale Mesa slopes toward the Green River.
“The motorized community pushed back pretty hard,” Grove recalled.
Dirt bikers had already developed a system of unauthorized trails in Tyler Draw, and they didn’t want to draw attention to it, he said.
The Sublette Trails Association’s board was sufficiently dissuaded.
“We don’t want to be involved in user-created or illegal trail establishment,” Grove said. “There’s a process for a reason, right?”
Starting over, Sublette Trails Association board members examined maps to try to find BLM land near town that “made sense from a recreation standpoint,” Grove said. The two adjoining parcels off Skyline Drive became the target. The appeal for mountain bikers and other trail users was clear: The site’s just five miles from town limits, it overlooks Fremont Lake and the terrain lends itself to trail building.
In February 2025, the International Mountain Bicycling Association prepared a 52-page draft proposal for the Bureau of Land Management with funding from grants and the Sublette Trails Association. The plans were reviewed by WyoFile, and show that the vision is to break the project into three phases. Altogether, the vision is for just over 18 miles of trail, including one-way downhill mountain bike-only sections. There’d also be three parking lots accommodating up to 60 vehicles and a restroom and “shelter facility.”
The proposal includes two pages under the header, “Wildlife Considerations.” That section vows to use seasonal closures, including gates and signs, marking the trail system off-limits during seasons recommended by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
Grove tried to sell West on the concept. The parcel, he pointed out, is currently open to foot traffic during winter months and migration season.
“We think that we can make this habitat better,” Grove said, “and protect it during the most sensitive time of year.”
West wasn’t having it: “I don’t necessarily like an argument of ‘we’re going to make this better by regulation,’” he said.
If the trails project stays true to the proposal’s pledge that it “will” include closures abiding by wildlife guidance, it’d only be open 4.5 months a year.
Wildlife worries
That’s because for wildlife, there are many habitat designations and a lot to protect.
“It does overlap with three species’ crucial winter range,” said Brandon Scurlock, wildlife management coordinator for the Game and Fish’s Pinedale Region. “Moose, mule deer and elk.”
Furthermore, a portion of the longest mule deer migration in the world — and Wyoming’s first designated corridor — cuts through the southern reaches of the parcel where trails are planned. The overlap includes “medium use” and “stopover” habitats.
The project is also located roughly 2 miles from the “bottleneck” of the migration corridor near Fremont Lake. Thousands of deer headed toward and away from the pinchpoint each spring and fall would presumably pass right by the trails. The Wyoming Mule Deer Alliance seized on that especially critical class of habitat, including it in its Change.org petition title: “Protect the Sublette Mule Deer Migration Corridor from the Fremont Bottleneck Bike Trail.”
The habitat designations in the area have killed trails projects in the past. In 2019, the Bridger-Teton National Forest killed a proposal for a nearly 4-mile-long trail. Converting closed forest roads, the trail would have ascended Fremont Ridge on the west side of the lake. Trail proponents ended up putting the new route higher on Skyline Drive in the Sweeney Creek area instead.
Seven years later, there’s a push for the same outcome.
“Our last meeting, I basically told them, ‘If we could somehow avoid putting trails and infrastructure on these two BLM parcels, that would be amazing,’” Scurlock said.
The biologist pushed to build the infrastructure higher up Skyline Drive beyond the BLM parcels, and “out of mule deer and elk crucial winter range.”
“That’s something we could really support,” Scurlock said.
Game and Fish hasn’t yet conducted a formal review of the project. That’s because it’s still in limbo and hasn’t been formally accepted by the Bureau of Land Management. The federal agency declined WyoFile’s interview request, instead emailing a statement that said the trail project is in the “early stages of review.”
“As with all proposed recreation projects, the BLM will complete the required environmental review before determining whether the project will move forward,” a BLM spokesperson who asked to be kept anonymous wrote.
“Our last meeting, I basically told them, ‘If we could somehow avoid putting trails and infrastructure on these two BLM parcels, that would be amazing.’”
Brandon Scurlock
If the 18-mile Skyline Drive trail network does advance, as proposed, wildlife managers will offer their formal recommendations. The boilerplate guidance for crucial winter range is to “avoid disturbance.”
“If you can’t avoid it, minimize it,” Scurlock said. “If you can’t minimize it, mitigate it.”
The recommended closures for the crucial winter range would be Nov. 15 to April 30. But because of the migration, the off-limit period would stretch longer. Game and Fish’s guidance for the “Finger Lakes” portion of the migration corridor is to keep it open for deer from April 15 to May 31 in the spring and from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15 in the fall.
That leaves just June, July, August, September and the first half of October for wildlife-friendly mountain biking.
Unaffiliated wildlife advocates say they’re withholding judgment about a project that hasn’t been formally proposed.
“I don’t think we’d want to put the cart ahead of the horse,” said Meghan Riley, who manages the wildlife program for the Wyoming Outdoor Council. “If the proposal comes out in a place that’s harmful to big game species in their crucial winter ranges, that’s something that we would probably not be in strong support of.”
Common ground?
Toward the tail end of their hike, West and Grove stumbled into a matched set of mature mule deer antlers. Although their resting spot lay within eyeshot of Skyline Drive, sagebrush must have obscured the prized antlers from passersby. The set’s bleached underside suggested they’d been there for a year — testimony to little human use, at least on portions of the parcel.
“What we’re asking of you is to put a little bit more value on the mule deer concern,” West told Grove.
The mule deer advocate asked the trails advocate if he’d be willing to look at other spots. Grove affirmed.
“That’s what I want to hear,” West said.
Grove sought to ascertain what it would take for the Wyoming Mule Deer Alliance to end its opposition if it stuck with Skyline Drive. The seasonal trail closures didn’t cut it, and a mutually agreeable path forward proved elusive.
Like Grove and West, Pinedale residents are bound to be divided on whether it’s the right step forward for Sublette County to build out a trail network that overlaps a famous migration corridor and crucial elk, moose and mule deer range.
The way local mountain biker Morgan Faber sees it, the signage and seasonal closures could help build awareness about Pinedale’s world-class wildlife.
“What a great way to highlight the fact that we have this wonderful wildlife corridor that is very special to Sublette County,” Faber said.
Pinedale “needs more trails nearby,” Faber said. It’d be a benefit to locals and tourists alike, she said.
“It really bums me out that there is such a pushback,” Faber said.
Others think that Pinedale’s lack of modern outdoor recreational amenities is what makes the west slope Wind River Range community desirable and unique.
“You could go to nearly any other mountain town in the United States to find those manufactured outdoor opportunities,” Pinedale resident Heath Harrower said.
“And we have a lot of bike trails, they already exist,” he said. “I don’t know why we would continue to build bike trails at the expense of what is special and unique to this area.”
I was an avid mtb’er. I loved exciting new trails. I get it. But look at what is happening everywhere. There are more people, more trails, and fewer wild places and wildlife. Seasonal closures don’t work without enforcement and no federal agency or local law enforcement is going to enforce anything as ‘insignificant’ as trail closures. Maintain and enhance existing trails, but please don’t carve up the last wild places.
is nothing sacred and peaceful anymore in wyoming…..why would bike path and human encroachment be allowed to disturb a migration path for elk, moose and mule deer…. remember John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High …. more people, more scars upon the land,, the peaceful habitat for these animals needs preservation and protection and undisturbed from human disturbance
Human beings always want more. More trails, more roads, more housing developments, etc….. Growing up in Wyoming and hunting big game in the seventies was a true pleasure. There were no ,or very few ATV’S. Now the state is over run by them, and I want to tell you that they are a very negative influence on the hunting experience. If you want to have true outdoor experiences, say no to these projects.