Wilderness Protection for the Boulder-White Clouds
Question-and-answer overview of the need for wilderness designation.
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Central Idaho's Boulder-White Cloud area is the largest single unprotected national forest roadless area in the lower 48 states. Over a half a million acres in size, the Boulder-White Clouds are a stunningly rugged chain of mountains near the headwaters of Idaho's famous "River of No Return," the Salmon River.
Glaciers carved the peaks and steep canyons in the White Clouds and also left beautiful basins with over 100 lakes scattered throughout the range. The white rock outcroppings on the mountain peaks resembled clouds to the settlers who named the range in the late 1800s.
Diversity in the Boulder-White Clouds ranges from alpine landscapes to dense forests to sagebrush and bunchgrass communities. This wide variation in landscape and vegetation provides habitat for mountain goats, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, black bears, gray wolves, pronghorn, chinook salmon and elk.
Recreational Mecca
Recreationists have made the Boulder-White Clouds one of the most popular destinations in Idaho and conservation groups have long urged their designation as wilderness. But off-road vehicle users and livestock operators have repeatedly thwarted the effort.
Off-road vehicle use in the Boulder-White Clouds has grown in recent years, and today too many wet meadows bear the gouges irresponsible dirt bikers have made as they pioneer off-trail routes. Snowmobile use has also allegedly increased in some areas of this region, although it is very unlikely that the use has increased to the extent claimed by snowmobile enthusiasts who add their voices to the anti-wilderness choir.
The loud protests from dirt-bikers, all-terrain vehicle users, and snowmobilers continue to impede permanent wilderness protection for one of Idaho's best-loved mountain ranges. Over the past year The Wilderness Society and its Wilderness Support Center have been cooperating in Rep. Mike Simpson's (R-ID) search for ways to break the impasse.
Any solution will have to assuage the concerns of those who hold permits to graze domestic livestock in the Boulder-White Clouds and of rural counties that worry about the economic impact of wilderness designation. The Wilderness Act of 1964, of course, allows livestock grazing to continue in designated wilderness. And all the research done to date on the subject indicates that wilderness is an economic boon for communities closest to it, not an economic bane.
The Wilderness Society will help educate affected counties about the Wilderness Act of 1964, about wilderness myths and realities, about wilderness economics. If we can get past the myths and misconceptions, we can identify specific, realistic concerns and try to address them.
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