Wilderness 50

TRAILS – A new  Cabinet Mountains Wilderness map, featuring about 80 trails, has been published by conservation groups celebrating the  50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. “The last Forest Service wilderness map, published in 1992, is out of print and hard to find,” said Sandy Compton of the Friends of the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, one of several groups, agencies and businesses that worked on the project.

“I ’m not a particularly fast walker,”  Heather Anderson said – much to the relief of  her interviewer – as she hiked a North Idaho trail last week. “The difference between me and the thru-hikers who have a fast pace is that I walked 3 mph all day and into every night, averaging 5 hours of sleep, without a rest day.”

Untamed spring: Wildflowers brighten the trail into the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness near Troy, Ore., on the second weekend in April.

Although the Olympic Peninsula is a short day’s drive from the Inland Northwest, it’s a different universe for local backpackers and hikers. The contrast isn’t simply about the fact that Olympic National Park and adjoining forest receives anywhere from 2 to 12 times as much rainfall as most inland hiking destinations. It’s about the environment all that water from the sky creates.

In the often-divisive arena of wilderness policy, the Scotchman Peaks straddle many boundaries. The scenic mountain range between the Clark Fork and Bull rivers has more geopolitical lines dotting its map than a United Nations seating chart. About 20,000 of Scotchman’s 88,000 roadless acres lie in the Panhandle National Forest on the Idaho side of the border. The Kootenai National Forest in Montana has the rest. Three counties in two states have jurisdiction of the area.

Three seasons of major forest fires have remodeled the scenery for backpackers who might be revisiting Idaho’s Seven Devils Mountains for the first time in a decade. But the Devils continue to be a heavenly destination for adventurers with the muscle power to get there.

Holly Weiler was blunt in the Spokane Mountaineers calendar item about the August trip she was leading through the Glacier Peak Wilderness: “We’re hiking a loop –Trinity Trailhead (near Lake Wenatchee) to Buck Creek Pass, out to Image Lake, back past Lyman Lakes, and up and over Spider Gap to Spider Meadows. It’s beautiful AND it’s tough. Participants must be capable of hiking 10+ miles a day with a fully loaded pack while going up (and down ... and up again) over some tough mountain passes. Limited to six experienced backpackers. Bring the good camera equipment for this one! Also bring an ice axe for Spider Gap (and knowledge of how to use it).”

Holly Weiler was blunt in the Spokane Mountaineers calendar item about the August trip she was leading through the Glacier Peak Wilderness: “We’re hiking a loop –Trinity Trailhead (near Lake Wenatchee) to Buck Creek Pass, out to Image Lake, back past Lyman Lakes, and up and over Spider Gap to Spider Meadows. It’s beautiful AND it’s tough. Participants must be capable of hiking 10+ miles a day with a fully loaded pack while going up (and down ... and up again) over some tough mountain passes. Limited to six experienced backpackers. Bring the good camera equipment for this one! Also bring an ice axe for Spider Gap (and knowledge of how to use it).”