based recreation activities taking place on or along the river 

 reach, use levels, access, recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS) 

 class, scenic quality, and the number and type of developed 

 recreation sites along the reach. Managers also indicated what 

 Value Class they would assign to each river reach, writing 

 explanations in their own words. 



A set of instructions was included to give all managers a common 



basis for providing the worksheet information (Appendix C). Each 



manager was again called by project staff during this phase of 

 the study . 



Once worksheets were returned, project staff reviewed and 

 compiled the managers' ratings onto a single worksheet for each 

 river reach. In many cases, only one agency completed a worksheet 

 for a given reach. However, when more than one agency rated the 

 same reach, their ratings were pooled to reach a "concensus." If 

 two managers rated the same reach differently on a criterion, a 

 new category was created. For example, if a river reach was rated 

 as having abundant access by one manager and as moderate by 

 another, a coding number midway between the two was assigned. 

 Rules for developing final value class assignments are provided 

 in Appendix D. Although some averaging was done in this step, if 

 any manager rated a reach as Class I (Oustanding Value), that was 

 the final value class, regardless of any other ratings received. 



At this point, the other participant group--river user s--sho ul d 

 be reintroduced. In the initial mailing, the managers also had 

 been asked to provide the names and addresses of river 

 re cr ea t i on is t s , clubs, commercial river outfitters, and others 

 who would have an interest in the study; project staff identified 

 additional river users. On April 11, about 300 river users 

 identified from throughout Montana (list available from DFWP 

 Parks Division, Helena) were mailed a letter introducing the 

 study and asking for river reaches and proposed value class 

 assignments. 



About ten percent of the river users responded, nominating one or 

 more river reaches for inclusion in the inventory. From this 

 information, project staff prepared a master list of reaches and 

 value classes and compared this to the list generated by the 

 managers . 



Few new reaches were identified, as user comments tended to 

 emphasize more popular and well-known reaches already included. 

 Managers and users rarely were more than one value class apart; 

 the higher of the two was used as the final value class 

 assignment unless more than one manager had agreed on a different 

 . class. 



After combining information received from managers and users, in 

 October, 1985, project staff mailed a draft printout of the data 

 to each manager for review and correction. A cover letter 

 explaining this procedure was sent with the printout. 



