I’ve been fortunate to visit the Boulder-White Clouds region in Central Idaho several times now, and each time I find the mountain views and evergreen forests carpeting their slopes so stunning they seem surreal. The few hikes I’ve taken into Ants Basin and around Fourth of July Lake have left me wanting a taste for more. When I’ve stood on the shore of Redfish Lake, staring across the water at the ragged silhouette of the Sawtooth Mountains, I’ve been awestruck and moved by the beautiful, powerful wildlands before me. Someday, when my children are older, I would like to backpack into the Sawtooths. Since that area is designated wilderness, I know it will remain wild and look just as beautiful as it is today.
Surprisingly, the Boulder-White Clouds area is not yet designated as wilderness, despite the fact that it encompasses a roadless core of 400,000 acres—the largest chunk of unprotected National Forest roadless land outside of Alaska. These wildlands contain over 150 mountains that tower more than 10,000 feet and provide critical habitat to dozens of wildlife and fish species.
Thanks to its spectacular scenery, hunting and fishing, the area boasts tremendous recreation opportunities, as well. Hunting and fishing are world-class here, as the absence of roads creates large contiguous tracts of land that support salmon spawning and big game such as elk, moose, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, black bear, and cougar. The Boulder-White Clouds are popular with Idahoans as well as thousands of people from out-of-state who come to visit each year. The popularity of these wilderness resources helps to sustain the local economy, which is largely based on recreation and tourism.
In the nearly twenty-eight years since Congress last designated wilderness in Idaho, snowmobile and dirt bike use has skyrocketed and continues to steadily increase. According to the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, in 1980 there were 747 registered motorbikes and ATVs. In 2005, that number had climbed to 104,000. It’s important that Congress act now to protect the Boulder-White Clouds, balancing the needs of various interests and minimizing user-conflicts.
For the last five Congresses, Rep. Simpson has been working with stakeholders—land owners and ranchers, conservationists, business owners, affected counties, motorized recreation interests, and concerned citizens—to find common ground and provide a legislative fix for public lands issues that have proven divisive in Central Idaho for decades.
He has introduced a bill (H.R. 222), the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act, that would designate almost 320,000 acres of the Boulder-White Clouds as wilderness, including low lands with rich fish and wildlife habitat, as well as high alpine lakes areas for which the region is known. Over 274 miles of salmon, steelhead, and bull trout waters and more than 100,000 acres of spring and winter wildlife habitat also will be protected in the proposal.
H.R. 222 is a common sense solution to many of the threats currently facing the Boulder-White Clouds area, permanently preserving one of the wildest, most intact ecosystems in the United States.
Marcia Argust is a Government Affairs Representative for the Campaign for America's Wilderness
