LAUREN MELINK, NARRATOR: Granitic and glaciated, the Bitterroot Mountains form the rugged and remote border between Idaho and Montana.

The range and its surroundings include 1.3 million acres of designated wilderness, five national forests, and countless rivers and streams.

CLINT KINGERY, LEAD WILDERNESS STEWARD: It doesn't feel like it's a landscape that's made for us.

It feels like it's a landscape that nature created.

Being out here, you feel like you're exploring true wilderness.

And I can't say that anywhere else I've been has really felt quite as wild as here.

MELINK: With elevations as low as 1,300 feet, the mountain range boasts coastal flora and soaring cedar trees, then climbs above 10,000 feet, to showcase sharp ridges and alpine lakes.

In the summer, the landscape feels alive, birds chirp and mosquitoes buzz, wildlife roams, haze drifts between peaks and berry picking is abundant.

And in the winter, snow covered rocks sit stoic in the middle of icy rivers, frozen drifts, snow falling to make the sky match the hills.

ELIZABETH CASSEL, ASSOC.

PROF. OF EARTH & SPATIAL SCIENCES: It makes me feel really lucky and blessed that here I am getting to work in a place like this that required all of these processes going back millions or billions of years, to make this beautiful landscape.

In the shadow of the Bitterroots, there's a reverence for the unpolished and inhospitable terrain, a respect for the challenge the mountains offer up to anyone who dares enter their kingdom.

And there's a tenderness, for misty mornings and for sunsets, for bushwhacking and for burnt trees, for a sense of quiet and of history and of knowing that this, all of this matters more than we can ever know.

Funding for Outdoor Idaho is made possible by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho, by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, by the Corporation for Public for Broadcasting, and by the Idaho Public Television Endowment.

TÍSQE ÍLP'ILP, NEZ PERCE LANGUAGE TEACHER, NORTHWEST INDIAN COLLEGE: The Nez Perce people called the Bitterroot Range, the iisl'amíisnima.

iisl'amíisnima in the Nez Perce Language translates to: "The Place with Brook Trout."

So all along the Bitterroot Valley, the Bitterroot Mountains and even into Missoula it was called iisl'amíisnima, the Bitterroots.

MELINK: 11,000 years ago, before fur trappers and Lewis and Clark, before the gold rush, before ski resorts and bike paths, raft trips and motorcycles, the Nez Perce or Nimiipuu lived off the land upon and around the Bitterroot Mountains.

TÍSQE ÍLP'ILP: There's still very sacred places out here, whether it's the Smoking Place or Indian Post Office or down here in the South Fork we have Pilot Knob, in my language is taml'ooyíicmaxs.

Those holy mountains and those sacred places are very important to our people today for a number of reasons, including our resources, our medicines, things that people need every day for our survival.

There's actually place names, in Nez Perce all the way back here into Nez Perce country.

Even in the Bitterroot Mountains, the Trapper Peak, saxsáaxnim iníit, means Ospreys Nest and El Capitan, hinmeetúum iníit, the Thunders Nest.

Even throughout the Selway Crags where the Nez Perce people have these names.

It's not just an empty and void place or like a national forest.

You actually had to get your feet out on the ground to these places and learn about them.

Being so far out in what we call wilderness today, a long time ago, it wasn't wilderness to us, it was just the land.

But being here in holy places or sacred places like this really makes you reach back through thousands of years and know that your ancestors are walking with you.

MELINK: Over time, the Nimiipuu learned to navigate the Bitterroot Mountains with efficiency, taking one or two routes across the range to hunt buffalo.

TÍSQE ÍLP'ILP: The reason why we called this specific trail, wiseískit because one day's travel on foot and you'll come to another good level ground for camping.

So it was called the 'camping trail.'

And it would usually take a few weeks, a week or more, to get over to Montana over the Bitterroots and they'd come out, near today's Darby, Montana.

I would just like to say that these trail systems are very important and our people used them for thousands of years and just to have a respect for the land.

DENNIS BAIRD, SELWAY-BITTERROOT HISTORY PROJECT: It's 10 to 11,000 years old, one of the oldest surviving trails on the planet.

And I think it's probably the oldest surviving trail in North America.

Not nothing comes close to it in terms of age.

And the amazing thing about it being findable is that it's a single route.

it's not multiple routes.

There's not braided trails and whole hillsides full of trails, there's a trail.

They used fire as a management tool.

That's how they kept the trail open.

MELINK: As years passed, the forest did what forest's do best and grew overtop the trail, that is, until retired historian and conservationist Dennis Baird got involved.

BAIRD: We decided to find the trail.

Not roughly where it was, but really where it was because we knew it was very old and the other was to reopen it, not to not to build a new trail, just to reopen the trail on its existing route.

And there had been an effort by the Boy Scouts and others 40 or 50 years ago to sign the trail with little wooden signs.

And they did a very good job.

So they were, their effort was very helpful to us.

MELINK: Clearing trees outside the wilderness boundary means chainsaws are allowed, so in the summer of 2022, Baird along with friend and cohort Ivar Nelson gathered together a group of volunteers who wield chainsaws with absolute finesse.

IVAR IVAR NELSON, HISTORIAN: And the great thing about these guys, the, what I want to call the storm troopers, the smokejumpers, is they are heavy equipment people and they just go after those big trees.

You're tripping through forest and it's a, this is an old forest.

So it's not, you know, pristine grass.

And you just walk across that with a few trees.

It's matchsticks everywhere.

And so you're stepping over.

You gotta really watch how you step and it's wet right now, too.

But these guys were great.

So we got a lot done.

MELINK: Over the past ten years, these volunteers have opened 30 to 40 miles of the Southern Nez Perce Trail, an impressive feat, physically and an emotional experience, mentally.

BAIRD: It's the real thing.

It's not roughly where it is.

It's actually where it is and where it always has been for 11,000 years.

It's a powerful experience to simply stop on a quiet day in the woods, standing where, you know people have been standing and walking for 11,000 years and wonder what, what were they doing?

What, where were they going?

What were they thinking when they were, who was it?

Were they here with their family?

It's a wonderful experience to, to stand there and, and think that that's one of the charms of the opened trail.

NELSON: It's an ancient way of people moving around the United States.

There are markers that tell you where the trail was.

The basic one, the very, very basic one is the tread itself.

And it is amazing.

It can be a foot deep, it can be nothing.

BAIRD: People lived along the trail, they hunted along the trail.

There were village sites out here in this country.

And so, I would encourage people to visit the trail.

But just remember whose trail it is.

MELINK: Crossing the Bitterroot Mountain Range in premodern times was no easy task.

Explorers Merriweather Lewis and William Clark learned that the hard way.

KEITH PETERSON, FORMER STATE HISTORIAN: That route was the, by far, the most difficult part of their journey, their route through the Bitterroots.

It was the bane of their existence.

Both going west and east.

That was kind of the thought, probably the most disappointing view in American exploration history was when Merriwether Lewis went to Lemhi Pass that day in 1805 and realized that it's a long ways to the Pacific.

Every story you read about crossing those Bitterroots including the people building the Lewis and Clark Highway, it's all a story of difficult go.

I mean that transportation, that Lewis and Clark highway connecting, you know, basically Missoula with Lewiston didn't happen until the 1960s, MELINK: One has to wonder, if the Bitterroot landscape is so rugged and unforgiving, why was the Idaho Montana border drawn in the way that it was?

Hundreds of miles of squiggly border line over peaks, across ridgelines, and into drainages?

PETERSON: If you look at a map of the west, you look at Wyoming and Colorado and almost, you know, Utah nearly, they're all rectangles and straight lines.

And you look at Idaho and something weird happened here.

The myth of the Bitterroots and how that border came to be.

The most popular is that the surveyors got drunk and lost their way.

And hence we have Lost Trail Pass.

The problem with that story is that Lost Trail Pass was named long before the survey parties even went out.

MELINK: The true story is a lot more complicated than that.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the act that created the Idaho Territory, a massive piece of land.

PETERSON: It was all of Idaho, all of Montana and virtually all of Wyoming, unmanageable.

The very first thing they did, the very first act of that first territorial legislature was to pass a Memorial to Congress, to shrink the territory.

And they had an idea about how it should be shrunk by this time, people are already calling whatever the new territory is going to be Montana.

So the dividing line between Idaho and Montana should be the continental divide, the Rocky Mountains.

So they sent that into Congress.

MELINK: But then things get a little messy.

Abe Lincoln appoints Sidney Edgerton to be on the Territorial Supreme Court, he makes his way to western Montana and decides the mining boom might hold opportunities for him.

Miners give him 2,500 dollars to lobby for a new border along the Bitterroots, not the divide.

Which would ensure western Montana mining towns stay in Montana.

And by the next year, Montana had withdrawn from the Idaho territory, establishing the Bitterroot Mountains as the state's boundary, all before Idaho could even object.

PETERSON: And it won the day because the Idaho legislature fell asleep at the switch, it's real important to understand that Congress specifically spelled out according to what Sidney Edgerton, asked them to do that the border will run along the crust of the Rocky mountains, northward to its intersection, with the Bitterroot Mountains, to the 39th parallel of longitude, and then basically in a straight line to Canada.

MELINK: And according to Keith Peterson, that decision changed Idaho's trajectory.

PETERSON: What it did was it, it took what had always been an East-West orientation, it created this isolated panhandle and you can't understand Idaho history without understanding you know, now 160 years of trying to connect north and south Idaho, culturally, transportationally, whatever, it's all about, you know, so much of Idaho history at least is about trying to connect north and south because trade don't flow north and south in Idaho.

MELINK: Although lawmakers were able to determine the Bitterroots as the border between Idaho and Montana,for some the actual border of the Bitterroot Mountain Range is still up for debate.

CASSEL: I think of the Bitterroot as the range that runs, from essentially the Lolo Hot Springs area down to the break into the Big Hole Valley.

That would be as a geologist, we would think of that as this, the actual metamorphic core of this complex.

MELINK: But that's not the question geologist Elizabeth Cassel and PhD student Haley Thoresen are here to answer- at least not today.

HALEY THORESEN, PHD STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO: By looking at these volcanics, we can do a multitude of things.

One of which is to date when those volcanics forms, because knowing when those volcanics formed and when they were deposited tells a story of not only how they got there, but knowing kind of how they got there can let us know about the topography of the surrounding region.

CASSEL: We take a bunch of different kinds of samples because we're trying to understand this entire earth process.

What is special about the Bitterroots is they are the result of stretching or extending of the crust on one major fault.

And that fault goes all the way into the middle or lower crust.

And so you're bringing rocks up from very deep, 20, 30 kilometers depth up to the surface, basically in this sort of motion.

And so this is the Bitterroots here that we see today They're not very old; that would've occurred 50 to 40 million years ago.

So not very old on geologic time.

We end up looking for locations in which we would find certain types of volcanic rocks.

We want them to be the right age range that they're gonna actually tell us something about, say the topography at some time in the past.

We went to the road cut first, because someone went in there in the past hundred years and cut that.

So it's gotten into a surface that hasn't been exposed to water and air for a long time, because water and air are going to start to alter the minerals in the rock.

THORESEN: So we usually take like a gallon size sample of rock, and then that's the sample that we will then ultimately take back into the lab and we'll crush it and we will get whatever mineral we want out of it by doing a series of complicated steps.

Essentially from a rock that I've crushed down to a small size faction, I put all of that sand essentially into a liquid that's at a certain density.

And so the important minerals that are denser will fall to the bottom of my sep funnel and all of the other non important minerals or things I don't want will float to the top and so it's a way for me to get a very particular mineral I'm using in my work.

Then I can start to calculate how fast this mountain was growing, how fast it took from the time that that mineral formed to when it cooled past a certain temperature gradient to when it was at the Earth's surface.

THORESEN: I get to spend five to six weeks every summer answering those burning questions I have inside of me of why does this certain area look the way it does.

CASSEL: To me, I think the fundamental question of understanding the places that we love and that we wanna spend our time and having sort of a greater appreciation for the planet and all of these amazing processes that have taken millions and millions of years and to form these amazing landscapes that we get to spend our time in.

MELINK: There are many ways to enjoy the BItterroot Mountains, and for those who live and work in their shadows, simply looking at the range can be more than enough.

CAROL STOKER, MOUNTAIN VALLEY FARMSTEAD: We love the sheep and we love what we do, we enjoy it, but there's some very challenging times.

But the best remedy for that is just to walk out here and see those beautiful majestic mountains.

And it just does something, it feeds your soul.

MELINK: Carol and Randal Stoker are the owners of Mountain Valley Farmstead in Carmen, Idaho.

RANDAL STOKER, MOUNTAIN VALLEY FARMSTEAD: We make artisan sheep cheese.

We milk the sheep, we make the cheese and package the wedges and sell the cheese.

It's a beautiful location in the Salmon River Valley.

We're in the valley right between the Salmon River Mountains and the Bitterroot range.

We have a beautiful view of the mountains and the pastures that we live on and the sun rises and sun sets almost every day, we say, come and look at this, come and look at this.

You, you can't miss this one.

Everyone's different and everyone's special.

And the same thing with the green valley, the Salmon River Valley is a beautiful place to live.

Just rewarded with beauty every day.

We think the sheep like it here as well as we do.

CAROL STOKER: With sheep, I love their personalities.

They just make us laugh.

They'll just do silly things.

RANDAL STOKER: The sheep become almost extended family.

They become very special to you.

You get to know them very well.

It's great working with animals.

And then we love being able to have a product that people enjoy.

CAROL STOKER: What do I like about sheep cheese?

Everything.

It just has so much more flavor to it and the nutrition, it has probably double the protein, sometimes three times the protein in it.

MELINK: Carol and Randal both have backgrounds in cow dairy, but this was their first foray into sheep's milk, and it took plenty of trial and error to get it right.

RANDAL STOKER: There was some times when our faith was tried, believe me when we were first starting up and stuff, especially.

We've always loved what we do, but now we've, we've been in it long enough that we think we got all the bugs worked out.

We know how to do it well.

CAROL STOKER: I love it all, I do.

It's kind of fun.

It's a lot of different jobs.

I do love milking the sheep.

And I love making cheese.

I think that's probably one of the hardest, just because it is kind of challenging and got a lot of responsibility on you trying to make the best batch of cheese you can.

We just are so blessed.

We feel like we were just kind of led here and I just, I even told him, I can't even imagine us doing this any other place.

We looked at other places, but nothing came through, but this one did and we just absolutely love where we're at.

MELINK: To love where you are means to be fully present, to be absorbed in work that provides fulfillment, emotionally and physically and for some, spiritually.

And sweating it out in nature, can do that.

Just ask the young people who spend their summer clearing trail in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness.

MACK SCANLIN, WILDERNESS RANGER FELLOW: I was a little nervous, like coming into this just because you know, it's nine days out here with these people and that's it, you know, and the food you brought and that's what you have.

But honestly, it's been great.

Just like completely immersing yourself.

Just being out here makes you really appreciate a lot more and realize how privileged we are just to work out here.

MELINK: The Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation is an organization with a mission to preserve the natural, pristine character of wilderness.

CAITLIN STRAUBINGER, COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR, SBFC: Congress passed the Wilderness Act in 1964 and the Selway Bitterroot was among the first wilderness areas officially designated in the United States.

And so, you know, folks have known that this is a special and important area and it received that, exceptional protection in the sixties.

MELINK: Each summer they hire about a dozen college students from across the country to live and work in the wilderness.

STRAUBINGER: The purpose is to support forest service capacity in the wilderness.

Folks getting out on trails, clearing trails, opening trails, monitoring for wilderness characteristics, and our program helps teach young people this way of life and see if it's something they're interested in doing.

FELLOW: Yes, Alright!

MELINK: Being the third largest designated wilderness in the lower 48, it takes a tremendous effort to maintain trail systems here.

Especially because chainsaw's aren't allowed.

SCANLIN: To learn how to use a tool that people a hundred years ago used and use it for the same things.

It's just really rewarding, I think.

And it's a really cool tool.

Cause' it requires being in sync with your partner and also having upper body strength, which I came into this with none and now like, pretty strong.

WALTER EMANN, WILDERNESS RANGER FELLOW: It's definitely very rewarding.

Not only to be there and be sawing through a tree and then finally get through this two and a half foot wide tree.

But also we've had people just hiking the trails who come up to us and say, "Oh, you guys are trail crew, thanks so much for your work."

And just to have that recognition from people definitely warms all of our hearts.

Just to be out here, in the wilderness, doing something I love just makes me feel proud of myself.

MELINK: The wilderness ranger fellows spend a few weeks training before separating into groups of three fellows and one leader, then they'll spend around 8 days working in the wilderness with four to six days off.

KINERGY: I do like to teach, let them kind of fumble around on their own for a bit, go back, teach again, let them fumble around with each other for a bit.

And in, in my experience, this just seems like a really quick way to get them invested and passionate about the work and also learning the skills to the best of their ability.

MELINK: For this group, every day of work starts off the same, with a little breakfast and a little warming up.

CHARLIE WARREN, WILDERNESS RANGER FELLOW: I definitely do feel kind of a deeper connection to nature and capital "W" Wilderness, like untouched area that have very minimal human impact.

It really is something kind of special to me that I think we don't have really enough of either in America or just kind of the rest of the world, of truly kind of primal areas that don't really have any human influence or anything like that.

I really, really value that about this area.

EMANN: It's a good, positive pressure to be able to have that self willpower to be like, okay, I don't wanna wake up, but I'm going to, because this is going to be a good day and I'm going to make it a good day.

And once I get back out there into the woods and I'm looking over the mountain ranges and cutting trees and seeing wildlife and picking mushrooms, it's gonna be fun once I get back into it.

SCANLIN: It's so worth it.

Do this.

If you can do this, do it.

It's life changing.

I've made like the best friends I possibly could and learned so many cool things.

And this organization has just brought a lot to my life that I didn't really know I needed.

And now that I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do, like once it's over.

MELINK: There's more to the Bitterroots than just hard work and history, there's ample space and opportunity for people to just play.

Beginning with the northernmost end of the range.

MATT SAWYER, ROUTE OF THE HIAWATHA: The Hiawatha identifies with the Bitterroots.

And this is the start of it from the top end.

This is the start of it.

MELINK: The Route of the Hiawatha is a former rail line.

It came about in the early 1900's when mid-west company, Milwaukie Road decided it was high time to expand westward.

A challenging feat, building a route through the Bitterroot Mountains.

SAWYER: When they were building all the tunnels, they would work from both sides and the engineers would try to sit there and make sure that they were working it correctly.

So you had a team on the Montana side, and a team on the far side, on the Idaho side, both digging through to come together and meet in the middle.

MELINK: The line was finished in 1909, and was about 200 million dollars over budget but within a year, a natural disaster would derail everything.

SAWYER: August, 1910, was called the Big Burn.

It was the largest fire in American history.

What was terrible about it is that it consumed three and a half million acres in the United States and one and a half million acres in Canada.

Unfortunately, the trail opened in 1909, in 1910, they had the fire and the railroad just watched what was their dream of harvesting all this lumber go up in smoke in three days.

MELINK: After that, the railroad had a series of bankruptcies, reorganizations and tried to reinvent itself again and again, until 1980 when the last train passed through.

Then, in 1998, the Bitterroot route reopened for another purpose.

HUNTER BENNETT, RIDER: Today me and my family got together and we all rode the Hiawatha, we went all the way down and then rode the shuttle back up.

SAWYER: Took the old railroad and those areas where the railroad used to exist, a beautiful pathway.

And you take out all of the rails themselves, where it buries the bones and, and turn it into a trail.

MELINK: Local business owner, Ali Koski and her two sons took a ride down the Route of the Hiawatha, 15 miles of railroad turned into a biking and hiking trail.

And for Ali, it was a first.

ALI KOSKI, WALLACE BUSINESS OWNER: I definitely did not expect the first tunnel to be as long and dark and wet as it was.

So I'm glad I had a light for that, and also glad I had a change of clothes, but they were beautiful and so like, cool in temperature.

So it was nice to go from the bright sun to the dark tunnels and have that variation on the trail.

SAWYER: There's 10 tunnels, nine that you ride through.

And then there are seven sky high trestles.

And the first tunnel here is 1.661 miles long.

That's our longest tunnel.

It's the second longest tunnel on the whole path of the Hiawatha.

ZEPH WILSON, RIDER: They were just pitch black.

Some tunnels were really short and you didn't really need a light, but the one right there was a mile and a half long.

So you needed a light.

BENNETT: Went through the last tunnel.

It gets really wet in there and there's just lots of mud.

And I decided to just full speed through this one this time and that just got mud all over.

KOSKI: The tunnels and the trellises were both really amazing.

But what I didn't expect were like the little pockets that you could kind of detour off on and turn it into like a whole day trip.

So you could walk down to the creek or walk up to the trestles and just see little pockets that weren't so common MELINK: Just up the road from the small town of Wallace, the Route of the Hiawatha is well known around the world.

SAWYER: Last year, had about 70,000 people ride the trail.

In most seasons we'll have 60 different countries represented and all 50 states and the numerous areas from Canada.

BENNETT: It's weird to think.

I live not even 30 minutes away and there's people from all over the U.S. that come here just for this trail.

SAWYER: There are some really rough areas of terrain along the Bitterroots and that's something that makes it special.

I think people come to get away and to enjoy this scenic nature and maybe the quietness and know that their phone's not gonna be ringing and things like that.

So to me, the Bitterroots is kind of a definition of space.

It separates Idaho and Montana.

SAWYER: They are a little bit rugged and they're pretty steep.

The elk, the deer, the flora, the fauna, all kind of comes together.

KOSKI: And I think that people take a lot of pride in it being like our own little corner of the Bitterroot mountains.

And so knowing that it's affiliated with the greater chain, it just is exciting to me to learn that there might be more if I kept traveling down and get to see more that Idaho has to offer.

MELINK: Depending on who you are, biking the Bitterroots can look very different.

LANCE GINES, INTO THE HORIZON ADVENTURE MOTORCYCLE TOURS: My name's Lance Gines.

I'm the owner of Into the Horizon Adventure Motorcycle Tours and Rentals in Boise, Idaho.

This segment of motorcycling is called adventure touring.

And so we're riding big dual sport motorcycles.

And so we pack all of our gear for doing seven to nine day tours and camp off of the motorcycles.

MELINK: In this case, Lance and his crew are tackling the Magruder Corridor.

101 miles of undeveloped dirt road that separates the Frank Church Wilderness from the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

From Elk City, Idaho to Darby Montana, the road winds through a primitive landscape.

GINES: Roads like the Magruder Corridor, to me is really the iconic adventure touring road of any roads that I've ridden anywhere in the world because it's difficult, but it's not too difficult.

It's not the type that's gonna be like, "Oh my gosh, this is too much.

I'm not gonna ride this."

You just really kind of enjoy it.

DAVID YUNKER, ADVENTURE RIDER: For me, like father time is, is ticking away.

So I'm 64 this year and you know, this level of adventure writing, there's a certain amount of physicality.

And I can't do this forever, so I need to do it now.

BILL BLODGETT, ADVENTURE RIDER: So I think it's a way for us to kind of get back to our wild nature, there's something that about people that I think causes them to seek out adventure and obviously it's also a way to get away.

You know, you get, so many people in the city kind of wrapped up in the rat race and you need a break, you need some downtime.

GINES: It doesn't take very long on a motorcycle trip for people to really become good friends.

Because we all have to help each other out, and work together.

We work as a team.

MELINK: The Magruder Corridor has an interesting history.

It began as the Southern Nez Perce Trail, and over time trappers and traders began using it.

Then, in 1863, Lewiston merchant, Lloyd Magruder was returning from Montana when he was murdered by four men hired to protect his pack string.

GINES: To me, it's just part of the history of the west.

There was so much murder that went on back in the early mining days that this was just another one.

Back when I first started, the whole thing was very wooded.

Unfortunately, through wildfire, a fair amount of the Magruder has burned over the last 15 years or so.

But the experience has only changed.

Because the different wildflowers that bloom every year that have been sprung because of the fires and stuff are pretty amazing.

Last year, the fireweed was just unbelievable.

The whole mountainsides going across here were purple and it was just, just absolutely beautiful.

GINES: The bear grass kind of looks like a very large Q-tip or something.

It's pretty spectacular for sure.

And I think it's fairly unique to kind of this area as well.

And I think that it only, grows and blooms from time to time.

I don't think it's an annual thing.

It's kind of cool stuff.

MELINK: But as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

YUNKER: The biggest shock for me is it looks like a nuclear wasteland where these fires have come through.

You locals, you guys think it's kind of normal, I guess.

It's you see it all the time where it's what I think a nuclear bomb went off and this is the devastations left.

That's what it looks like to me.

BLODGETT: It's going good.

It's been a good time.

You know, some rocky sections, some loose sections, but it's all good.

It's pretty epic.

You get up to these, you know, high mountain areas.

You got these incredible views you can see for, you know, hundreds of miles.

GINES: I mean, it's a little bit of everything, you know, as far as how mountainous country can be, you get a lot of everything in here.

GINES: And so I just really appreciate nature in all forms, I mean that's one of the reasons I love Idaho is it's so diverse and we see so many different landscapes all within a single day, you know, but this across here is pretty, pretty special and pretty unique.

MELINK: The outskirts of the Bitterroots can be just as rugged as the range itself are equally rugged, to the west lay the Selway Crags a granitic cluster of low-elevation mountains dotted with sparkling lakes.

MELINK: Hard to get to and hard to leave, this isolated landscape offers a sense of solace to its seemingly few visitors.

WILL DOERING, HIKER: Going up on those peaks is really spectacular and you can just see for miles in every direction.

It makes you feel unimaginably small.

And I think that's what is most important for me is just you feel so, so small underneath all of this, and I thought that was fantastic.

That's not something that I, I think you can get any other way.

AUDREY GABRIELLI, HIKER: There's a little bit more risk that you have to consider.

So stakes are a little higher, but the payoff and the views are unmatched.

MELINK: The Crags sit south of the Lochsa River and north of the Selway River, the steep mountains, boulder fields and dizzying drop offs make for a challenging off-trail hike.

DOERING: There's really not more than, you know, five feet of flat ground at a time.

Like at any time you were either going downhill or you are going uphill.

So, you know, something may only be a mile and a half away or less, but the amount of time that it actually takes you to get there between, you know, backtracking, you know, zigzagging down, climbing down stuff, climbing up stuff, trying to find a route where it's not just a sheer drop, thousand feet, whatever.

It takes a long time to get anywhere.

GABRIELLI: The mountains don't hold back.

They're super steep, lots of deep valleys, but then when you get down into the valleys they're pretty lush and there's streams, there's still snow melting.

It was awesome because we were scrambling across these rocks and then, look down and there's this plethora of grouse berries there.

So I think the trip took us a little bit longer than we had planned because we kept stopping and having berry breaks and, and that's totally fine.

Love it.

DOERING: You know, you see this mountain and you're like, I climbed down that and I climbed up this, and I actually went that far.

And you can see Montana from where you're standing.

GABRIELLI: It's an amazing feeling to be hiking and then get up to the top and you see lakes and waterfalls and valleys and it's amazing.

MELINK: From Legend Lake to Legend Peak to views of Three Links Lake and Cove Lake and Fenn Mountain, hiking in the Selway Crags offers up 360 degree panoramas, and for those willing to get them, an alpine dip awaits at the end of the day.

GABRIELLI: You can't be at a lake like this and not jump in.

We decided the best way to kind of wake up after, you know, the post-hike sleepies is to go and jump in the lake.

It felt amazing.

And, yeah, wakes you up.

GABRIELLI: There's always a trade off when you're in nature.

Sometimes in order to get those views, you're gonna also have to battle your friendly neighborhood mosquitoes.

That was a challenge, but it's still totally worth it.

Just come prepared.

Wear your bug nets.

DOERING: I've always wanted to go backpacking.

I felt it was a little bourgeoisie maybe.

But I'm really grateful that I did, I pulled the trigger and this is the best place I possibly could have gone for my first time.

I mean, it's really, it's really spectacular out here.

MELINK: Now if you want the mountains but without the isolation, there's a place to go in the Bitterroots that'll give you just that.

R.J.HIGGINS, LOST TRAIL SKI AREA: Lost Trail has been around since 1938.

That was the first year that people started skiing up here on this pass.

It's right on the continental divide.

We're just on the west side of it.

And by being up that high, you get really good snow conditions and good moisture.

MELINK: Situated north of Salmon and directly on the Idaho-Montana border, Lost Trail Ski Area is known for being affordable and family friendly.

HIGGINS: You kind of get removed from the hustle and bustle.

Like it's a very down to earth vibe here.

People are gonna be super friendly in the lift lines.

They're gonna say hi to you and treat you nice.

Our average snowfall is around 300 to 325 inches a year.

I fell in love with Lost Trail, being able to ski the type of terrain it has.

And the snow quality is really nice.

And it's consistent.

We have 1,800 skiable acres, we have five chairs and three rope toes, which is one of 'em counts the bunny hill.

There's great beginner train here.

We have good intermediate.

And then we have some really gnarly terrain for the people that want to come get extreme and we have the snow to support all of it.

And it's awesome.

MELINK: One mile down the road from Lost Trail is Chief Joseph pass named for Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Tribe.

Also, located on the Idaho-Montana border, the area has become a playground for winter enthusiasts.

BENJI SCHWARZ, BITTERROOT CROSS-COUNTRY SKI CLUB: Chief Joseph pass is a free cross country ski area.

We operate off of grant funding and donations.

That's managed by the club as well as in a partnership with the forest service and then that contracts out with Lost Trail across the way.

SCHWARZ: Most people that are willing to come out this far are out to just kind of enjoy the day.

And it seems like there's a lot less tension and conflict when you get a little more space to yourself.

Today we were skate skiing.

It's just been kind of a hobby that you can carry on into any stage of life, just because it's so low impact.

And there's just something that gets addicting about moving that fast on snow.

But we do oscillate between this discipline and also the more traditional what we call classic skiing.

We have a good sampling of both those types of skiers up here at Chief Joe.

It's something a little bit meditative.

That kind of just bringing all of your attention because you are moving so fast and I mean, if you look at these things there, there's not much there to stand on.

Just the requirements for balance and flow.

And when you start to hear the snow kind of crunch under there, it kind of dampens out all the sound and forces you to focus.

It just forces you to just kind of come into yourself and it just really restores your peace, at least it does for me.

MELINK: With a mountain range splitting two states, the best way to access the grandest views of Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains is by climbing Montana's tallest Bitterroot mountain, Trapper Peak.

JEFF LONN, GEOLOGIST: We can see up the Bitterroot Valley all the way to Missoula really.

And we could see farther if it was not so hazy today, we could actually see all the way to the Mission Mountains.

You know, a hundred miles north of here, and we have the length of the Bitterroot range right here, and then all around us we have all these surrounding mountain ranges, the Pioneers and the Beaverheads in Southwestern Montana, the Bighorn Crags in Idaho.

And I think we could probably see the Selway Crags if I were to turn around.

Just a fantastic view.

MELINK: Over 10,000 feet, Trapper Peak rises above Montana's Bitterroot Valley, tempting seasoned hikers with its lofty summit.

VERONICA POSTER, HIKER: This was something that we've been looking forward to doing at the end of the season for three months now.

And so actually being able to do it and completing it is amazing.

It's a little nerve wracking.

I am a little afraid of heights.

The bouldering and scree field are definitely not in my comfort zone.

But it's fun.

It's fun to challenge myself like that.

SCOUT CARAM, HIKER: My knees hurt and I'm really tired, but it's very nice to be up here.

STEVEN ADAMSON, HIKER: it felt pretty rewarding once I got to the little geological marker and seeing the 10,157 feet, it's like, eh, finally did it.

Highest I've ever been for sure.

Yeah.

I live at 400 foot elevation my entire life.

So coming up to 10,000, I was like, that's kind of, kind of scary, but it wasn't so bad.

And I'm finally here.

MELINK: While the top is certainly the destination, the journey to it is equally breathtaking.

LONN: There's hundreds and hundreds of alpine lakes in the area.

And of course they were scoured out by the glaciers and we went by a few on the way up and they're pretty spectacular places.

And they're usually separated by waterfalls because they're in hanging valleys that were created by the glaciers On the way up, we talked about these alpine larches, and uh they're deciduous conifers.

In other words, they have needles and they lose their needles in the fall every year and they turn a brilliant gold color and they're just beautiful and they grow up high, sort of at the upper limits of trees.

They're really close to the timberline.

And, I think that they live for a really long time, like more than 2,000 years.

MELINK: As part of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, Trapper Peak and the surrounding land have loyal defenders who believe in the value of the land - in its untouched state.

LONN: The wild lands aren't just important for us.

They're important for all the ecosystems, the plants and animals.

I think it's really important to preserve as much of it as we can.

And that seems to be getting harder and harder, but we keep trying to preserve things and we don't always win battles, but I think as someone said, it's not the battles that you lose that are so bad.

It's the battles that you don't fight.

MELINK: From the snowy peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains, comes runoff, destined for the Selway River.

ARI KOTLER, OUTFITTER, SOAR NORTHWEST: For me, as a river guide, as an outfitter on the rivers, the rivers are the arteries.

It's the life blood of any mountain range.

MELINK: The Selway is a 100-mile stretch of free flowing water that winds through pristine land that's only been tarnished by nature itself.

KOTLER: It's a place of solace.

It can also be a place of endorphins and rushes.

It's a protected and restricted river corridor, it transforms from one ecosystem to another.

Wildlife, greenery, so much, wildflowers.

It's hard to put into words, honestly.

MELINK: Rafting the Selway River feels remote.

And that's because it is.

Running through the heart of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, isolation and serenity are common themes for those lucky enough to spend a few days here.

MANDY NUSSBAUM, RAFT GUEST: There's something really special about being able to sit and just have it be the natural world kind of enveloped in it.

Definitely a lot of like, you know, self thinking, being able to wake up in the morning and sit next to a campfire with a cup of coffee, just like in the quiet, hearing the rushing waters is really kind of incredible, as simple as it is.

KOTLER: And this feels good.

Something just resonates with them again.

It's like rekindling something that's lost in their heart.

MELINK: Tucked within Wilderness, the Selway River was uniquely protected in 1968 as a National Wild and Scenic River.

Only one raft group is allowed to launch each day and few permits are handed out each year.

ANDREW MOREHOUSE, RIVER GUIDE: I think it's amazing that people had the forethought to protect these landscapes.

And, um, I'm really grateful for that.

And, when you're out here, you understand, like this could look a lot different, if we didn't do that.

So I think wilderness is crucial.

This landscape has really steep canyons, rolling mountains, just that classic Idaho character of steep ups and, and downs and big canyon walls.

You know, you go through some, some older growth forests, some burnt forests, that I think lends itself to understanding the wild character of this landscape and the natural regime of the ecosystem.

KOTLER: You have your furs and your Pines, but you see outcroppings of your Northwestern, Cedar, we were spotting today and wildlife and birds.

JOHN BROWN, RIVER GUIDE: It's just incredibly lush, tons of cedars and yews and lovely little flowers everywhere.

It's also just frigging full of butterflies.

I've never been on any river outside of the tropics that had remotely this many butterflies.

MELINK: Whether you're a guide and you've seen it a dozen times, or a guest on your first Selway outing, the romance of this wild river is undeniably present.

BEN NUSSBAUM: I think it's important for us to have space where we can go and disconnect from the concrete jungles of society and enjoy the landscapes that humans were, you know, meant to enjoy.

It's been so amazing to watch the landscapes change so much since we first put in, in this really narrow, shallow river with pretty heavily wooded areas behind us.

And then today we went through like some really tight, narrow canyons with big rock walls around us.

It's just been so awesome to just watch it all go by.

It's like a never ending wallpaper out here.

[GUIDE: And forward two!)

MELINK: But make no mistake, the river's reputation as one of the best whitewater runs in the United States is well deserved.

BROWN: When the river is high, it's very big and very pushy and you have to be absolutely on your toes and really knowing how to navigate big, powerful white water and punch through big powerful features.

And then when it is low, there's a lot of rocks out there.

So it becomes just this technical tetris mind game.

KOTLER: The proximity of those rapids and the characteristics really define the Selway because at high flows, recovery space is minimal.

It's that Moose Juice, that crux right there after the confluence that gets people's hackles up.

You know, they want to make sure they understand the flows, know where they're at and have the best knowledge of what's to come, and the skillset.

BROWN: Just something about being out in the glory of this very big complicated thing, and having a great time by learning to play by mother nature's rules.

It's like that classic thing you play by the rules, you get to hang out at the party, you know, and it's an incredible party to get to hang out at.

MELINK: While whiteknuckled rapids might be what some people come for, what they leave with means so much more.

CHARLIE NUSSBAUM: Out in the quiet woods with my family, enjoying time together, and also just enjoying time doing things together, maybe just as importantly or perhaps more so, KEITH NUSSBAUM: It's been obviously the craziest rafting I've ever done and like the most exciting, but also very relaxing at the same time.

Because like the water feels great and the company is even better and then just, yeah, it's just, there's nothing quite like it, nothing quite like having your problems just flow down the river with you.

MANDY NUSSBAUM: It's been so fun and so silly.

Like everyone's just having a great time fishing or hiking or just riding along in the boats.

And it's just been laughing, sit around the campfire at night.

It's just, yeah, it's been a dream.

KOTLER: I've been on river time and then there's Selway river time.

It's just a different time and place.

That river sparkles green and you're swimming in it.

And you feel the sand in between your toes and watch that river go by, iIt's very magical.

It's sacred.

It just gets in your heart.

It gets in your soul.

It inspires you.

It takes you to different place.

The Bitterroot Mountains, the Selway River, you know, you've got to feel it to understand it.

You've got to live it to understand it.

Funding for Outdoor Idaho is made possible by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho, by the Friends of Idaho Public Television, by the Corporation for Public for Broadcasting, and by the Idaho Public Television Endowment.

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