Happy Trails to You

Draft 4.6

March 24, 2026
FINIS (unless I get another quote)

“Leave the road, take the trails,” advised the mathematician Pythagoras more than two thousand years ago. Had I known of his fondness for trails, I might have paid closer attention in geometry class to the man who unlocked the secrets of the right triangle.

Trails have always been part of Idaho’s DNA. The Nez Perce Trail, the Lewis & Clark Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Centennial Trail—they’ve all helped define the state. You might even add Idaho’s primary north–south highway to the list. Anyone who’s driven it understands why the late Governor Cecil Andrus once called it Idaho’s Goat Trail.

 

Some of Idaho’s 19,000 miles of trails are in great shape. Many are not. Others have simply vanished—lost to wildfire, fallen timber, erosion, brush, and neglect. Since most trails are on federal land, trail funding continues to shrink. Many forest districts now rely heavily on volunteers just to keep their most popular routes open. Over the years, Outdoor Idaho has returned to this theme again and again, in programs like our 2000 "Outdoor Volunteers" and the 2012 “The Foothills” program.

 

 

 

Retired trails manager Jay Dorr summed up the problem in our 2020 program, “Sawtooths on My Mind.” He called it the upside-down pyramid. "They add more stuff in the Supervisor's office or the Washington D.C. office and cut positions on the ground where folks are actually doing stuff. It's always been that way.”

 

But things are even worse now, said the man who joined the Sawtooth National Recreation Area trails crew in 1971. "We used to get to most trails every few years and the high-use trails every year. And now with fewer crews, wildfires, and bug kill, you don't get to a trail for four or five years. Instead of clearing three miles of trail, you're doing half a mile of trails in a day. And the backlog just keeps getting bigger and bigger."

We met Jay at a (name of lake). He wanted to show us the oldest tree in the Sawtooths—an impressive specimen, even in death, killed by western pine beetles. It stood as both monument and warning.

As we interviewed him, Jay began to tear up. It wasn’t just about trails. What moved him most were the people—the young men and women he had trained over five decades, many of whom went on to lead meaningful lives. While they were working on trails, the trails were working on them. That, more than anything, was what made him proud.

 

 

Outdoor Idaho stepped into the fault lines of trail use as early as 1991 with a program called “The Politics of Trails.” For one segment, we brought together a hiker and a motorized rider at Fourth of July Lake, near the edge of the White Clouds. It’s an easy two-mile hike—popular with families. That day, Lynn Stone hiked in. Clark Collins rode in. Our camera waited in the rain.

 “You’re trying to tell me that the uses are all compatible,” said an incredulous Lynn Stone with the Idaho Conservation League. She had written a book about hiking the trails of the White Clouds. “And all I have to do is put up with the noise, plug my nose so I can’t smell the fumes, and jump out of the way of these machines whenever they come up, and I can live with you?”

 Clark Collins was the executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, whose goal was to protect trails for motorized users. “And on most of the trails, the level of use is such that it wouldn’t change your experience that much,” countered Clark. “There are only a few trails left available for motorized use. And it seems that we are continually being asked to give up access to those trails, with no compensation.”

Lynn Stone: “In Idaho, we have a chance in the Boulder-White Clouds to keep the peace and to keep the wild.”

Clark Collins: “And we’re willing to concede the majority of the Boulder-White Clouds to Wilderness designation, but we’re not willing to concede all of it.”

Lynn: “What about Fourth of July Lake trail, Clark? What do you think? Isn't that quiet nice right now?

Clark: “What are you willing to trade?”

 

The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management now find themselves managing not just land, but expectations—trying to balance an increasingly divided public. In many cases, their role comes down to little more than promoting trail etiquette.

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that whoever controls that narrow ribbon of dirt winding through Idaho’s backcountry controls much of the state itself.

We got a taste of that reality in 2007 with “Motorized Sports.”  It was a well-crafted show—an unapologetic celebration of trail bikes, snowmobiles, jet boats, and sand buggies. People who loved those machines loved the program.

Others did not.

The backlash was immediate. Some longtime viewers felt we had crossed a line—joined the enemy and violated a sacred trust.  It didn’t matter that motorized users were increasing in number. That was exactly the problem, argued the angry letter writers and the phone callers. Why encourage it?

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The story of the White Cloud mountains is a story with twists and turns that rival some of the trails in this white-limestone-capped range. In the late 1960s, it seemed inevitable that the Arizona-based American Smelting and Refining Company would build a road into the range and open a massive molybdenum mine beneath Castle Peak. There appeared to be little the Forest Service could do about it. ASARCO held valid mining claims under the federal 1890 Mining Act.

What followed—a grassroots environmental awakening that stopped the road, influenced an election, and ultimately led to Wilderness designation fifty years later—is a story we knew well, having produced “White Clouds in Waiting” in 2003 and “Beyond the White Clouds” in 2016. Outdoor Idaho interviewed all the key players in the fascinating story, and it’s why this book can cover the entire 50-year battle in a chapter called “The Elvis Version: It's Now or Never." 

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Serious mountain bikers soon discovered the White Clouds’ primitive trails—drawn by high peaks, clear lakes, and the chance to see goats, elk, wolves, maybe even a wolverine. I remember stepping aside in 2014 as a pack of elite women racers flew past us on the way to the east side of Castle Peak. Twenty miles out and back was just another day’s ride.

You won’t see that today. In 2015, the White Clouds became federally designated Wilderness.

Its passage caught many people by surprise, especially those who had been biking the trails of the White Clouds for years. President Obama was prepared to use his pen to create a new National Monument, but Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson asked for six more months. He wanted one more run at Wilderness designation for the White Clouds. It would be his tenth attempt in 15 years.

The Congressman called on all his connections, his friendship with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and his knowledge of the arcane legislative rules that govern the House. He succeeded in securing a Wilderness designation not only for the White Clouds but also for the nearby Boulder Mountains and the more pastoral Jerry Peak region. The bill passed with a unanimous vote in the House, with Idaho Senator Jim Risch delivering another unanimous vote in the U.S. Senate. 
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The Wilderness Act of 1964 had established the framework for how Wilderness lands would be managed. The key words are some of the most beautiful words ever written into legislation. “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” 

There was no mention of mountain bikes. The modern mountain bike did not exist at the time of its passage.  But, as wilderness historian Douglas Scott explained, mountain bikes are “exactly the sort of mechanical transport the law intended to prohibit in Wilderness.” Quiet and primitive recreation had become the historical definition of Wilderness after 1964.

 

Many mountain bikers see a distinction between their mode of transportation and that of gas-powered machines, and many of them felt betrayed with the passage of the White Clouds Wilderness bill. One avid mountain biker told me he would never trust the congressman again. “Why would any mountain biker ever want to support Wilderness?" he asked rhetorically? "The one group that you’d think would support Wilderness now feels their interests are not respected. They would be idiots to ever get behind another Wilderness bill.”

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There is currently a fight at the national level to weaken the Wilderness Act of 1964, which would have a direct impact on Idaho’s trails. Some say it could be done in various ways, like allowing Forest Service officials to open up certain trails to mountain-bike use in their jurisdiction if they deemed it appropriate.

I personally think it would be unfortunate to have mountain bikes in some of our favorite Wilderness areas, like the Sawtooth Wilderness or the major trails in the White Clouds Wilderness. But should mountain bikes be kept out of all trails in all Wilderness areas? And what about new proposed Wilderness areas? Should exceptions be made? Should decisions about trails be determined by those closest to the action, on a case-by-case basis?

This is an issue with serious ramifications. If we ban their toys, will a younger generation continue to support Wilderness? Or will they prefer the less restrictive national monuments as a way to manage the West’s special places?

 I interviewed John Freemuth about the fight over trails and wilderness and mountain bikes. The executive director of the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University knew that the passage of the White Clouds Wilderness had created a significant split among mountain bikers. But he also knew that the law speaks to “mechanized” means of travel, not “motorized." So as currently written, the Forest Service could not simply allow mountain bikes into the wilderness.

“You can look at all the language around wilderness,” said John, “and much of it is poetic. It's spiritual. It's 'go experience it, but on its own terms.'  Much of the language of mountain bikers is about the country as thrill, as someplace to have fun, gnarly, and not wilderness. 

"Is that going to become a dominant position in the next 30 years?  I think it's hard for some of the old wilderness warriors to realize how their perspective is aging. Younger folks may not quite see it the same way."

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If you love a place, you have choices. Keep it secret. Or build a constituency strong enough to protect it.

When Margaret Fuller published Sawtooth and White Cloud Trails in 1979, it was the first comprehensive guidebook in Idaho. Today you can find dozens of guidebooks and online material that describe trails in virtually any part of the state. But being the first to explain and feature trails led many to question her motives. In the Idaho Statesman newspaper, the letters to the editor were not friendly, accusing Margaret of inviting hordes into secret, fragile places that would never be the same, just to sell a few books.

Her efforts certainly lured more people to places like Alice Lake in the Sawtooths and Big Boulder Lakes Basin in the White Clouds.

But when I attended her 90th birthday in 2025, I was immediately struck by how many lives she had touched. Everyone in the crowded room had a Margaret story. And when I posted a photo on social media, the responses poured in: gratitude, admiration, respect. I realized how important Margaret has been in shaping our modern concept of public lands and trails. 

Perhaps Margaret’s great value has been as a confidence builder. Just knowing that Margaret—with her children in tow—had thoroughly documented the wilderness trails in her books gave mom and dad the confidence they needed to head out with their own family for a multi-day trip. 

To Margaret and others like her, trails are like blood vessels, and in many ways just as important. They carry life into the landscape. When the world closes in on you, trails are the escape routes to a different reality, a different rhythm. Without trails, the value of much of Idaho would diminish considerably. 

At her party I spoke with husband Wayne, her biggest fan. He smiled as he listed her various surgeries—knees, back, wrist—and then added, “It still hasn’t slowed her down.” Wayne knew she could leave him in the dust on any of the 6,000 miles she’s clocked, including Goat Lake which, she wrote was the most dangerous hike in the Sawtooths.

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One can argue that Margaret’s obsession with trails has been a double-edged sword. The day that several of us had taken a virtually non-existent trail up and over a good- sized hill in the Sawtooths for our 2021 “Off the Beaten Path,” we were the only ones at the beautiful mountain lake. We had it all to ourselves. Meanwhile, a Forest Service official noted that not far below us on that same weekend, 50 people had hiked to Goat Lake while dozens more had taken the trail to Sawtooth Lake.  Margaret’s books had something to do with those numbers.

And then there’s Castle Peak. The largest mountain in the White Clouds is just barely visible from the highway. It was saved precisely because people came to know it, to care about it, and to fight for it.

Sometimes, building a fan base can actually save a place, even if it means more people on the trails.  Margaret may be selling a few guidebooks, but she’s also building a constituency for Idaho’s special places. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad way to view Outdoor Idaho’s legacy, either.

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We had heard that America's newest Wilderness had few trails. We were intrigued, so in 2016 I gathered a group of experienced hikers to walk the length of the Hemingway-Boulder Wilderness Area, starting near the West Pass Creek trailhead. The plan was to hike out the other end of the Wilderness just outside Ketchum and Sun Valley, a distance of more than ten miles.

It was hard to find anyone who had recently traveled through the Boulders, and we soon realized why. As Rick Gerrard, an experienced hiker who joined our group commented, "this is the most vertical environment I've spent time in. We haven't done one hike on this trip that hasn't been challenging." 

We hadn't hiked far before the stream washed out part of the trail. A small pile of rocks--a cairn--marked the junction where we left the old mining road and started up the West Pass Creek trail to our base camp. At one point the trail turned into a sea of rocks. Upon hearing that we would be hiking in the Boulders, Margaret Fuller had told one of our group, "I think you're nuts."

"There was a trail coming up initially, but then it turns into a goat trail," explained Dan King, whom we affectionately nicknamed "the Goat" because of where he was willing to hike. "When you hear 'goat trail,' there actually are goats. So you follow the trails because the goats know where they're going. They kind of give you advice, but not necessarily the best advice."

We set up base camp at 8,800 feet, in what passes for a flat area, more than four miles from the parking area. This would be our home for the next three days. The most pristine water on the planet was less than 100 yards from our tents, as were breathtaking meadows of wildflowers, small waterfalls, and a red ridge line of mountains that came almost up to our camp. 

I had agreed to prepare the meals. I’ve always tried to impress fellow travelers with my home-cooked meals. The things I used to eat as a teenager on my early backpacking trips—like dehydrated pork chops—still haunt me.

For our Boulders trip, I started out simple, with buffalo burgers. But anyone who has camped with me knows what’s coming next: chicken piccata—with chicken breasts beaten flat, personally gathered Idaho morels, lemons, capers, plenty of butter, spices, and all that over quality rice.

I like to serve it the second or third day, when hikers are starving for something hearty and savory. "Bruce knows a lot of recipes," joked fellow hiker Rick Gerrard, "but they all taste like chicken piccata. Not that I'm complaining, of course.”

 

Sometimes there's wine to go with the meals. Sometimes, it's quality beer. That all depends on what the group purchases. I leave that to them. I personally believe that good food can overcome bad trails, even when the primary trail is playing hide-and-seek among the boulders, the fallen trees, the scree, and the creek beds.

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 When we set out to hike the length of the Hemingway-Boulders wilderness, we had not planned to bag the highest peak in the region. But sometimes trails get the final say.

The summit of West Pass trail is 10,060 feet. Close by is Ryan Peak, at 11,714. That’s less than 1,700 feet to the summit of the highest mountain in the Boulders. The sky is deep blue, the temperature is just right, we have plenty of water. What could possibly go wrong?

Joining us on our wilderness adventure was Chadd Cripe. He was the outdoor writer for the state's largest newspaper, the Idaho Statesman. Chadd was a self-professed car camper. He had never been in Wilderness before. “I'm different than most of you guys in that respect," he commented to me. "I'm a trails guy. I like to know where I am and where I'm going."

I can only imagine his concern when our entire group was at West Pass, operating GPS units and trying to figure out which peak was Ryan. 

"I was using a new app," said Rick Gerrard. "I was absolutely willing to bet a dollar that I was looking at Ryan Peak when really I was looking at nearby Kent Peak. Fortunately, somebody convinced me and we went the right way."

If Chadd was concerned, he hid it well. He was excited and was convinced that the climb would be memorable. "And then there was a mountain goat," he explained in our post-interview. “By the time I took a picture of the goat, a string of people was going up the hill. And so I followed and ended up going a little bit harder route, up the face of Ryan Peak.

"The first third of it was just fine. And then it got really kind of spooky.  At one point I lost my sweatshirt. I had it strapped to something on my backpack that broke. It was 10 feet below me. And it was so spooky looking down, I didn't want to go back for it. I left it. I wasn't going down the hill at that point. It's still there, a donation to the wilderness. We joked whether the goat was going to wear it or the sheep, but yeah, it's still there."

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Enter the lupine, a stunning blue-violet perennial, sometimes used for medicinal purposes, with a taproot that manages to prosper among rocks and very little soil.

"At one point somebody yelled down to me, 'Just follow the lupine!' That's the advice I got, follow the lupine," laughed Chadd. "I had never given much thought to lupine before. But I found I could grab onto the lupine. You can't grab onto the rock because the rock just comes right out from under you. The lupine didn't budge. They were my new best friends. They got me up the hill."

Eventually, Chadd ran out of lupine and had to scramble up the mountain without their help. He still had a 600-foot elevation gain along a ridge that dropped off severely on both sides. He was now forced to confront his inner demons.

The Boulders are volcanic and sedimentary rock, with some granite. It's what climbing books refer to as "rotten." Even what appears to be solid rock can crumble in your hands. "For a long time I was afraid of heights. You get that vertigo feeling. It's a big, huge 3,000-foot drop over here and over there. That was probably the scariest part. You start kicking rocks down the hill, and you start thinking Rock Slide! Am I going to be a rock slide going down the hill? And there was nothing to stop you.”

Chadd’s new friends guided him to the top and helped ease his fear of heights. At the summit there were High Fives all around. We sat in the wind for nearly an hour, trying not to get blown off the mountain and trying to memorize what seemed like all of central Idaho beneath us. We knew we'd never come this way again.

Dan King had climbed most of the large peaks that we could see from our vantage point, and he could identify what the rest of us were seeing. "You can see the Pioneers. You can see the Lost River Range. You can see the Sawtooths. Ryan Peak is right in the middle of all this. You can kind of put it all together. When you've done all the other areas, it all ties together."

Dan made us feel good when he commented that he had lost twenty pounds in preparation for this trip. "So I think I'm in better shape than I was ten years ago. I could actually feel the difference,” he told us.

 Also getting to the top was my colleague John Crancer. He fought through the pain of his feet and back, his bouts with cancer and Lyme disease. "The view was definitely worth it," he said. "You’re in the heart of everything. I wasn’t going to miss this for the world!”  Linda Olson, who had two knees replaced the year before, also summitted. She was more concerned about how to get back down with two rebuilt knees. "Two years ago, before I had the knees, I couldn’t hike anymore. That just tells you how good the doctors are, that you could do something like this."

 Tim Tower arrived at the top and almost immediately began taking photos. Both Tim and Rick Gerrard had volunteered for many of our Outdoor Idaho excursions and are the primary reason some segments of our Outdoor Idaho series are well-documented. They say what brings them back is the camaraderie, the difficulty of the journey, the humor, and the campfire discussions.

I think they were just too embarrassed to admit it was the chicken piccata.

 

Videographer Jay Krajic has climbed all nine of Idaho's peaks that tower above 12,000 feet in elevation, like Borah and Hyndman and Church. It was for a program we called "Idaho's 12ers."  Ryan Peak missed being in that august group by 286 feet. So Jay knew what he was getting into. “But this was brutal," he said. "I like a challenge, but I was cursing the whole way up Ryan."

Jay and I had taken what we thought might be the trail, tackling Ryan from the side. The others chose the more direct route, up the face of the mountain. Jay was carrying the camera and the tripod. Occasionally, I offered to lessen his load, hoping he wouldn't accept my offer. It's possible he didn't hear me.

For much of the ascent, we were struggling through rock that had mostly devolved into sand. I'm sure everyone tackling Ryan that day was second-guessing their choice of route.  But there was simply no good way up that peak.  

"Two steps up, one step back, but the view is amazing,” said Jay. “I did Borah last August. I think this is a better view. It's prettier here. Everything seems so much closer."

Coming down the mountain wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. With all that rotten rock and sand, it was a lot like skiing. We spread out across the mountain, to avoid the large rocks that beat us to the bottom. The only casualty was my khaki shorts. That evening around the campfire, there was much to talk about. 

"The trail isn't always the best route," commented Dan King. "We went up a route that looked like the least challenging. When we came down the mountain and hiked down the actual trail, that was far worse. Following the trail is not always the best option."

"I appreciate trails as much as anyone," said Rick Gerrard. "In fact, I thought coming down from the summit of Ryan that I was on a trail, and suddenly there was no trail. The next thing I know, I hear this waterfall. I would never have come across it if I hadn't wandered off the main trail, if you can call it a main trail. Around here there's no such thing."

Peter Morrill was into word play when I asked him his reaction to the wilderness experience. "I think you have to be a little bolder to come into this area," he said.  “It's rugged.  And that’s why this area really only has one major trail, a modest to nonexistent trail for most of the wilderness. That's part of the mystery and the challenge of a place like this."

I had never been interviewed at 11,714 feet, but Chadd wanted something at the summit for the newspaper article he was writing. The wind was blowing so hard that we could barely hear each other speak. There was actual fear that we could get blown off the narrow peak. The one thing I do remember saying was completely wiped out by a blast of wind, so when we watched the interview later back in the edit bay, I had to listen carefully to make out what I had said. And there it was: This is, indeed, the Wild Child of the Trinity of new Wilderness areas in our state. 

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Around the campfire, we talked about what we had learned that day. Trails are promises, not guarantees, someone ventured. Time has its way with trails, and eventually most of them fade. What matters is whether you keep going beyond that point.

I thought of the world of Pythagoras, with its certainty in angles and lines that connect. But the mathematician suggested we take the trails. He knew they had their own geometry. There’s no equation to guide you. They wander and vanish, sometimes leaving no way forward.

Several commented on how the world becomes more intimate at higher elevations when you have the time to notice things: the sound of a waterfall before you see it; the resilience and fragrance of a blue flower rooted in stone.  Everything must be earned at an elevation of more than two miles above sea level.

 

Turns out no one was disappointed in how the day had played out. We all knew that the trail was not just showing us where to go. It was teaching us how to go.

In a world that grows increasingly louder and faster and less thoughtful, trails present an alternative: a slower way forward, a humbler way of seeing, and a reminder that not everything needs to be marked and mapped to be valuable.