Wilderness 50

Going the extra mile for a special reunion of four old college friends, we huffed and hoofed deep into a Montana wilderness where roughly 240 square miles appeared to have been reserved for our private party. The Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness has never been a notably crowded destination despite its easy access from Interstate 90 west of Butte. Two weeks ago, however, the backcountry haven was virtually deserted.

It's day five of Bobby and Dave Terese's 10-day hunting trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. Neither has bagged his elk yet, but this morning, as the two New Orleans cousins wolf down bacon and eggs, they fill the air with Cajun accents and raucous laughter, the optimism of another day in the wild. Hunting is a journey, not a destination for these two. If they shoot an elk, they're thrilled. If they don't get anything, they say they'll still consider the trip a success.

Plans to poison thousands of fish in 21 Montana lakes then stock them with westslope cutthroat trout have final approval and the work, still disputed by some state commissioners, is tentatively scheduled to start this fall. The project, proposed in 2001, is meant to remove hybrid trout from the western Montana lakes, nearly half of them in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

While "Near Nature, Near Perfect," might be a stretch for Spokane, the city's slogan would be an understatement for the 94-mile Wonderland Trail that circumnavigates Mount Rainier. From rain forests to glaciers and slugs to mountain goats, the entire Pacific Northwest mountain experience is packed into this one classic loop. That said, it's not for everybody. The Wonderland is not a wilderness experience in the sense of the puckering solitude found deep in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana or in just about any park or refuge in Alaska. Backpackers on the Wonderland Trail can:

Wet landscapes and wilderness management rules have maintained paddling as the premier mode of transportation in several of the nation's wilderness areas outside of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The Okefenokee Wilderness is 396,000 acres of swamp-paddling paradise in the core of the 438,000-acre Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge of Georgia.

Nothing takes modern big-game hunters to their roots more quickly and efficiently than a wilderness-bound pack string. Wall tents, wood stoves and saddle sores are part of a Western autumn tradition that dates back to the mountain men, although nowadays a wilderness hunt is a luxury in more ways than one. Cinching saddles before daylight, going one-on-one with a bull elk far from road-hunters and fences and packing out the meat by muscle power are tantalizing experiences for hunters who have access to horses and mules. An industry is supported by hunters willing to pay from $600 for drop-camps to more than $4,000 apiece for a weeklong outfitted and guided elk hunt in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana. Dave Waldron, who operates Western Life Outfitters based in Pomeroy, Wash., has served hunters in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. He cited pros and cons to hunting on both sides of a wilderness boundary. "A pack trip usually gets away from what you want to get away from, whether it's into wilderness or non-wilderness," he said. Waldron has been guiding in non-wilderness areas of Idaho for the past eight years, but has moved home to Washington this year to offer trips in the Blue Mountains, where he hunted even before the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness was designated in 1978. "The access is different and it's more work in the wilderness because you can't ride in on a four-wheeler or use a chain saw, and I don't mind that," he said. "Outfitting in a wilderness helps attract customers who are looking for a wilderness experience.

The Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in Montana is distinguished from the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness of Washington and Oregon by several factors important to elk hunters, including more elk, longer seasons and fewer restrictions. Size has something to do with it.

Rivers are the blood vessels of a wilderness area. They are the life lines that link the ecosystem and provide the arterials for fish, wildlife and adventurers alike. The Wild Rogue in Oregon, the Wenaha-Tucannon in Oregon and Washington and the (Salmon) River of No Return in Idaho are examples of wilderness areas named for streams that have carved a critical role in the region's viability and culture.