Outdoor enthusiasts invited to Thursday meeting

Calling on all local residents who like to hike, camp, ride mountain bikes, hunt, fish, kayak, boat, ride ATVs and more. A meeting is being held tonight (Thursday) to help promote and guide outdoor activities in the North Big Horn County area.
The special outdoor recreation meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at the Lovell Community Center, hosted by the Town of Lovell.
“Please bring your friends and family to discuss the opportunities and development of outdoor recreation in our area,” reads an invitation sent to many individuals.
“We’re looking to establish an outdoor recreation group in the north end (of the county) here so they can attend (the Big Horn Basin Outdoor Recreation Collaborative) so we can have some representation,” Lovell town administrator Jed Nebel said. “There are a lot of awesome things going through (the collaborative), and they come through the north end, but we just don’t have enough representation of our people.
“We’ve constantly identified outdoor recreation as kind of where the town and citizens of the town want to start tapping in for economic development. We constantly hear about outdoor rec and that we’re behind the curve with outdoor rec, but we have all this stuff to do.”
Nebel said he sat down with Mayor Tom Newman and went over recent developments like a study by mountain biking enthusiasts from Colorado and other issues.
“Mainly this is trying to get, I don’t want to say our own collaborative, but I do,” Nebel said. “I want representation for hiking, fishing, hunting, camping, mountain biking, (and) ATVing. That’s the overall goal, to get a group together in the north end that can maybe have their monthly meetings that would participate and be a part of (the collaborative), which is part of the state framework for outdoor rec.”
Certain activities from the north part of the county have been represented on the Outdoor Recreation Collaborative, but other interests need to be heard, too, Nebel said, adding, “We need representation there.”
Nebel said his goal is to get an outdoor recreation/economic development group “focused on some of these opportunities we have,” adding, “One of the big things we lack is deliverables. Your family comes from out of state, and they want to kayak. Where do they go? You can ask 100 people and some might not know exactly where to go (to put in) or how long the float will be.”
Nebel said there are many local outdoor recreation activities in the north end that can be added to the online interactive Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Wonder Map.
“There’s so much more here than is on that map,” he said. “We’ve got to get a group that’s willing to put that information on the map. We have to get a group that’s willing to work with our chamber of commerce and the Wyoming State Tourism board to get deliverables and maps.
“It’s the long game. You have to be invested, and it takes time.”
Invited to the meeting are organizations and agencies such as Wyoming Pathways, Wyoming Outdoor Recreation, the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, BLM, the Wyoming Trails Program and a variety of interested individuals.”
Nebel summed up the intent of the meeting as “If you want to grow outdoor recreation, we need civic participation. With a lot of these projects we’re talking about here, the Town of Lovell can’t do it. Jed (Nebel) can’t do these on his own; the Town of Lovell can’t do these on their own. We need a group that’s willing to do this.”