course.A consortium of major corporations, including Chrysler Realty, Northwest Airlines, and Burlington Northern Railroad, purchased private land homesteaded in the late 1800s or granted to the railroad as part of its land grant.Then it traded sections of railroad land grants in other parts of the Gallatin National Forest for federal land within the consortium’s planned development.Forest Service, making its management easier.Fledgling environmental groups opposed the development on the grounds that it was being built in a pristine ecosystem sandwiched between a national park and a wilderness area.They were concerned about air and water quality, wildlife habitat, scenery, and congestion.It is reasonable to assume that, had these environmental groups had the clout of their counterparts who ten years later stopped a similar resort closer to Yellowstone’s boundary, they would have stopped Big Sky,
