Who
LandTrust was founded in 2019 and is the nation’s leading land-sharing marketplace for DIY hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation access on private land (think ‘Airbnb for outdoor rec’). Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, LandTrust is rapidly becoming the go-to company for landowners looking to share their land, and recreators looking for private land to do a myriad of outdoor activities.
What
For Department of Defense units and personnel, LandTrust provides an innovative new way to access rural private lands for conducting training exercises (individual and/or collective) without having to jump through the hoops of training on public lands. LandTrust’s platform makes searching for and discovering private land, connecting with landowners, and booking land for training as easy as booking an Airbnb/VRBO.
Additionally, for Service Members who love the outdoors but have limited time to plan and scout new areas, LandTrust is an invaluable resource for finding new places to hunt, fish, etc. around the country.
When
Nic De Castro (pictured above) founded LandTrust in 2019 in Montana. In 2021 the company began to expand into new markets, hiring employees in Nebraska, Kansas, and North Dakota.
Where
Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, LandTrust currently has approximately 1.5M acres of land across 40 states and is adding tens of thousands of acres weekly. Properties listed on LandTrust include a large variety of terrain, from mountains and thick timber to open plains and grasslands, predominantly west of the Mississippi River. Some property owners offer known and unknown distance range options; with appropriate coordination, other options like this could be made available for training.
Why
The majority of LandTrust’s landowner hosts are multigenerational farm and ranch families with a strong sense of patriotism. Many would love to host military members and units for CONUS-based training exercises or other outdoor activities. This affords leaders throughout the DoD a potential pool of previously unutilized training locations. LandTrust’s inventory of properties provides planners with any type of terrain and environment to meet their desired end-state for training.
Additionally, by using LandTrust to find and book private land for training exercises, military units will help support America’s multigenerational farm and ranch families, who are the backbone of our nation.
If you’re interested in learning more about how your unit can leverage LandTrust for future training opportunities, please call us at (406) 709-8450, let us know what type of training and/or the type of land you’re looking for, and we’ll be happy to help coordinate with the right landowners behind the scenes. One of our team members is retired Army Special Forces with extensive experience in exercise planning and can assist in developing options based on your training needs and requirements.
Great idea, though wonder how long this will last before litigation rears its always ugle head. Hope they are planning and looking at SDZ’s for various calibers, esp. when next to other private landholders to cover themselves. Most hunters/troops are good, careful and understand the basics but there is a large and growing number of GPS zero-hero yahoos out there who rarely have a good idea where they are, much less where their rounds could be impacting. These shortfalls are compounded when folks are on tight timelines and/or in vacation&trophy-mode and don’t have the time, inclination or patience to properly appreciate where they are and what theyre doing. They might benefit by providing “guides” at minimal cost who actually know the terrain, wx, neighbors, etc.
Thanks for the comment willington. We recently began discussions with a couple DoD partners and contractors for training on privately owned properties, and how it would work. As of now, the interest is mainly with cross-country mobility training and other specialized, non-shooting training scenarios. Based on the training requirements, we at LandTrust would generate location options for the requesting element; if there is a live fire requirement proper safety measures would be in place, and we would work with the requesting element on this, including establishment of SDZs accordingly, based upon the most current version of DA Pam 385-63. ??
As for guides, I will say that the vast preponderance of our partner landowners are supporters of our military, and if given the opportunity, would happily accompany any training elements on site surveys and the like. Also, LandTrust is more than happy and willing to send a representative out to the property with any training element for area familiarization and whatnot.
We are available to answer any questions or concerns, just give us a call at (406) 709-8450 and we’d be happy to discuss!