The Custer Gallatin National Forest and private landowners in the Crazy Mountain range northeast of Bozeman are exchanging nearly 3 square miles of land.
The forest this week announced it finalized an agreement with the Wild Eagle Mountain and Rock Creek Ranches.
Forest officials say they’re navigating a “checkerboard” of private and public ownership in the southern Crazy Mountains, and the swap streamlines land management by forming national park acreage into uninterrupted blocks.
The scattered ownership also means that trails sometimes cut through private property. The U.S. Forest Service says it aims to reroute a local trail through the newly public tracts of land.
