Exploring Bighorn Crags in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness

Stretching across six(!) National Forests, is the incomparable Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. At 2.367 million acres, “the Frank” is the second largest protected wilderness area in the contiguous United States, just behind Death Valley. Established in 1980 as the River of No Return Wilderness, it was renamed after Senator Frank Church, who played a key lead role in passing 1964’s landmark Wilderness Act.

Coursing through this picturesque land is the Wild and Scenic Salmon River, named the River of No Return by pioneers due to its high speed and one-way only travel. Today the Salmon is one of the most popular areas for experiencing a whitewater thrill, with runs of both the middle fork and main fork barreling down deep canyons with gorgeous scenery.  The river is fast as it drops steeply through towering canyons 1000’ deeper than the Grand Canyon.

High above lies the remote and jagged Bighorn Crags, a rugged collection of granite peaks and alpine lakes offering spectacular vistas for which it is widely known.  Recreation opportunities abound here, with incredible fishing for native salmon and steelhead trout, miles upon miles of hiking, and a photographer’s dream of sweeping views surrounded by rugged peaks in this undeveloped forest. 

Indeed, the area does see high traffic (for Idaho standards anyways) and our service project, set for August 15 - 22, is assisting wilderness rangers on the North Fork Ranger District with needed trail maintenance on the Mirror Lake Trail. This will include building a turnpike through a bog, creating and installing log waterbars, and retreading a section of trail. We’ll start with a 9. 5 mile scenic backpack via Birdbill Lake to a picturesque base camp at Mirror Lake. The Forest Service will provide pack animals to carry our group food, commissary and tools. Free day activities might include day hiking to Ship Island Lake, Big Clear Lake basin or other remote lakes or peaks, picking and eating in season huckleberry, fishing, swimming or just relaxing beside alpine lakes & streams.

 

Feel free to check out pictures from previous years of WV projects over on the gallery to see some examples of this incredible area. Click here to learn more and signup for the Bighorn Crags, FCRONR Wilderness service project, August 15 - 22!

The Birth of the Pulaski and the Great Fire of 1910

Volunteer Ed Leonard sharpens his Pulaski on a WV trip in Dolly Sods 2012

If you've been on a service project with WV, there is a very good chance you've used a Pulaski. This common hand-tool features an ax on one side of the head and an adze or hoe on the other. The Pulaski is the preferred tool of choice in fighting wildfires and building trail, among many other outdoor uses. But do you know the circumstances of how it was invented?

Last week the television series American Experience, which airs on PBS stations across the country, featured an in-depth documentary on the massive fire of 1910 in the northern Rockies, The Big Burn. Still unsurpassed in American history, this gigantic blaze burned more than 3 million acres and over 100 lives were lost in a weekend. The documentary details the impact this fire would have on the burgeoning National Forest Service and the tenuous political climate surrounding Gifford Pinchot and the agency's growth under President Theodore Roosevelt. Also detailed in the documentary is the valiant efforts and particular history of one assistant ranger in Idaho, Ed Pulaski.

For anyone who has swung a Pulaski and/or cares about the history of our public lands, it is a really interesting tale. Luckily, if you missed it, you can watch it below. More information is also available on the American Experience website.

Please let us know what you thought of this documentary in the comments section below.

Available Summer Adventures

There are still spaces remaining on WV service projects in several outstanding wild places. Here are a few of the places that have spots available to give something back:

Mission Mountains Wilderness, Montana, July 19 - 26

Photo by Tammy Rinaldi, WV Service Project in 2010

The Mission Mountain Wilderness, with its rugged peaks, pristine glacial lakes and mountain streams, is frequently called the American Alps. The Missions feature 225 lakes and its clear waters hold native trout, a high-bred "Cutbow" (which is a cross between the Cutthroat and Rainbow trout), and pike. Its high peaks tower 7000 feet above the valley floor, up to 9280' McDonald Peak. The slopes and valleys are heavily forested, rocky and lush with undergrowth.

This a great trip for everyone, including beginner backpackers, as it's fairly level and we have terrific pack stock support. Our service project will be very useful in helping maintaining these scenic mountain trails after a particularly late snow season this year.  See the project page to learn more and join us in America's Alps.

Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness, Bighorn Crags, Idaho, August 17 - 23

Photo by Caroline Williams, WV Service Project 2013

Located in west-central Idaho and below the Montana state line, lies the 2.3 million acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area - the largest wilderness in the United States outside of Alaska. Cutting through it with ferocity is the Wild and Scenic Middle Fork of the Salmon River, called the River of No Return by pioneers. High above the river is the remote, jagged Bighorn Crags area, with outstanding opportunities for hunting, hiking, primitive camping, fishing and whitewater rafting.

Please join us on our service project in this undeveloped and wild land, assisting wilderness rangers from the North Fork Ranger District with trail maintenance on the Ship Island Lake Trail. Our work will include erosion control, reroutes, brushing, and maintaining campsites following a 9 mile backpack to a picturesque base camp at Airplane Lake in the Ship Island Lake basin. 

Mt. Hood Wilderness, Oregon, September 7 - 13

Located twenty miles east of Portland, Oregon, and the northern Willamette River valley, the Mt. Hood

Photo by Sharon Pilot, WV Service Project 2012

National Forest extends south from the strikingly beautiful Columbia River Gorge across more than a million acres of forested mountains, lakes and streams. At its heart lies the imposing figure of Mt. Hood, a dormant volcano with 11 active glaciers, forested slopes and alpine meadows. The Mt. Hood Wilderness follows river drainages to lower elevations, concealing waterfalls and valleys that support an understory of Oregon grape, salal, rhododendron, huckleberries, and an overstory of towering cedars and other moss-covered conifers.

The service project is working with the Mt. Hood NF Fisheries Biology team on a continuing collective to restore and aid salmon habitat recovery along Still Creek and the Salmon River. We'll spend the first part of the week working on stream banks restoring riparian habitat, wetlands and stream-side vegetation by planting native Red cedar, and removing illegal campsites and fire rings as they are encountered. The second half of the week we'll be gathering seeds and berries for direct sewing or later propagation. Opportunities abound for day hiking to area waterfalls and taking in the sites of this classic Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest. This project is great for all experience levels including beginners to car camping and service work.

Find more info about these projects and more on our website.

Thanks for giving something back with Wilderness Volunteers!

Report From The Field: Sawtooth National Recreation Area

Report From The Field by Dave Pacheco

This past week, I co-led a group of intrepid Wilderness Volunteers into the rugged Sawtooth Wilderness to help the agency managing the Sawtooth National Recreation Area with some much-needed trail maintenance. We're proud to say this was WV's 15th project giving something back in the Sawtooths since 1999!

Under the long-time supervision of Liese Dean, Wilderness Program Coordinator, and Deb Peters, Assistant Trails Supervisor and expert packer, we backpacked in five miles to a campsite in the Stanley Creek area of the wilderness and immediately got familiar with our home for the week. Our first impressions were how incredibly clean the water flowed through this magnificent granite-based, Lodgepole pine forest -- some of the clearest water we had ever seen. And we couldn't help but be starkly reminded that the entire location, camp and work sites, were in a burned area from a 2007 fire.

For the next five days we made daily forays of up to eight miles round trip performing an assortment of

trail tasks. Volunteers took turns sawing out 55 downed trees across trails with a six-foot cross-cut saw, we lopped and brushed back overgrown vegetation from 5 miles of trail, and mostly we cleaned out debris and rocks from 244 water bars over that same distance. The water bar work was particularly important because of the unusual level of erosion from the past fire, and they are necessary to divert the water from gouging through trails.

Over the course of the week, we were thrilled with late night visits through camp by Mule deer and elk, and on the smaller scale we were entertained by pika, Clark's nutcracker, bluebird, and some very colorful Western tanagers. Thankfully, Thursday's storms that touched off wildfires across Idaho were well away from the immediate area, but they did make for some incredible evening red skies. The Sawtooth NRA is a place of many streams, deep glacial lakes, craggy peaks, and it's a place many of us will return to as we constantly explore wild America. If you're looking for a spectacular wilderness adventure, join us next year for another week in the Sawtooths!

See more pictures from this project and others via WV's online photo gallery.

Peak Season for Volunteering

A new crop of leaders

It is one of those busy summer weeks for Wilderness Volunteers. We've got 4 projects out in the field right now, making a difference and giving back on a variety of wild lands.

There are two projects currently in Colorado and both are high-country backpack projects. There is a service project in the South San Juan Wilderness of the Rio Grande National Forest where participants are camped in a meadow adjacent to a creek at over 10,000'.  Just 10 miles from the New Mexico border on the eastern side of the Continental Divide in the Rockies, WV participants are reconstructing two bridges that have fallen into disrepair. The participants are rebuilding broken and rotted sections of the bridges and reinforcing with bolts and hand tools.

The other CO project is in the Holy Cross Wilderness of the White River National Forest. This project is a leader training trip, teaching WV participants all they need to know about how to lead WV projects on their own. And the participants are working on trail maintenance, building turnpikes and erosion controls in addition to learning how to ensure participants' safety, the proper ways to prepare and pack for a week's worth of meals for a dozen folks in the backcountry, how to practice and impart Leave No Trace ethics, how to ensure a safe and sanitary camp and much, much more. Quite a packed week and at high elevation in the Rocky Mountains no less.

WV leader trainees learn how to pack food for a weeklong service project in Minturn, CO

Also at significant elevation is the WV service project in the La Sal Mountains of Southeastern Utah.  A group of dedicated participants are currently out on the Moonlight Meadows trail working with a trail crew in the Manti-La Sal National Forest building erosion controls and water crossings before the late summer rains come on.  It's hard work at high elevation, but the view across wildflowered meadows down to the slickrock canyons below is quite nuturing.

WV participants and a Forest Service crew member pose by a reconstructed bridge in the La Sal Mountains

Perhaps if you squint hard enough, you can see the WV project underway up high in the La Sal Mountains

Augering while a deer scampers 

And up in Idaho, a WV group is working in the Mallard-Larkins Pioneer Area, helping the Nez-Perce Clearwater National Forest team maintain the Smith Ridge trail. Participants are cutting back overgrowth and clearing debris from the trail, while enjoying some breathtaking views.  Rumor has it a journalist may be stopping by the project, so we'll keep you posted on when that story appears.


Another busy week of giving something back.  We've got a few more weeks like this and we don't want you to miss out!  Check out the upcoming projects that still have availability on our website.

Project Spotlight: Mallard-Larkins Pioneer Area

Lush ferns and old growth cedar forests are a wonderful feature of Mallard-Larkins Pioneer Area, photo by summitpost.org

The Wilderness Volunteers’ Project Spotlight next falls in The Gem State. Lying about 150 miles due west of Missoula, MT in the Idaho panhandle is the extraordinary Mallard-Larkins Pioneer Area. As the highlands at the convergence of major river systems, the spectacular 30,000 acre Pioneer area is the centerpiece of a larger 260,000 acre roadless area that extends between the Nez Perce-Clearwater and St. Joe’s National Forest. The area has been under consideration for wilderness designation since the Wilderness Act was passed (there was community support to protect these lands beginning in the 1950s) and is managed like a designated wilderness. Stretching west from the Bitterroot Mountain Range, the abundance of water draining into swift rivers has carved steep canyons and sustains beautiful old-growth forests as well as crystal clear lakes and streams. The roadless area has dozens of accessible subalpine lakes, including the 35 acre Heart Lake, presenting lovely recreation opportunities, especially in the warmer summer months.

Looking down at Heart Lake, photo by Craig Gehrke

Threatened Western Toad, photo by Walter Siegmund

Once home to native Chinook and Steelhead salmon that swam all the way from the Pacific, the lakes are now stocked by Idaho Fish and Game with rainbow and cutthroat trout, as well as the native bull trout and re-introduced Kokanee salmon. Moose, elk, wolves, black bear and deer thrive here, as well as one of the largest populations of Rocky Mountain goat. The area is an important habitat for threatened and endangered species as well, such as the bull trout, western toad, fisher, harlequin duck and the Coeur d’Alene Salamander that is endemic to these Northern Idaho lands.

The steep and impressive mountain range has many craggy peaks over 6,000’, and is heavily forested. A multitude of wild berries and wild flowers live amongst massive old-growth western red cedar and western white pine. The sharp elevation change allows a wide breadth of bio-diversity to exist here, with the coastal rainforest environment of the Pacific Northwest at lower elevations, while the higher elevations support subalpine meadows and forests of western hemlock and lodgepole pine.

A view from atop an Idaho Peak, photo courtesy of summitpost.org

The Nez Perce people were native to the lower elevations in the area, but it is believed they did not regularly venture to the higher elevations due to the lack of food and passage over the mountains to Montana as exist further south. While miners flocked farther south in Idaho to where gold was found, the area around Mallard Larkin wasn’t populated until the early 20th century. In response to massive forest fires of 1910, Gifford Pinchot advocated for the management of forest land to increase protection from fires, which ultimately led to the creation of the Forest Service. Hundreds of miles of trails were created to access lookouts built atop the peaks of Northern Idaho. As air travel increased and roads were built the need for a vast network of lookouts was erased. The lookouts employed enough people that their closing led to a decrease in the local population. However, the area is now seeing an increase in usage due to the excellent outdoor recreation and beautiful scenery.

Clearing the way in the nearby Selway-Bitterrot Wilderness, Clearwater NF, 2010 photo by Mike Leonard

Our service project in the Mallard Larkins Pioneer Area is general trail maintenance. We will clear brush and cut back overgrowth as we explore the area's magnificent trails. Our campsite features striking vast views of the surrounding beauty, located atop a small pass on Smith Ridge.  Learn more about the WV Service Project in the Mallard Larkins Pioneer Area.