Volume12, Number 2
Summer 2000

The Payette Crest: Last Stand for Idaho's "Unprotected" Wildlands?
By Don Smith and Lee Mercer

Does the Clinton Administration's roadless initiative go far enough? A look at the Payette Crest in southwest Idaho shows why it doesn't, and why passage of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act remains our ultimate goal.

The Payette Crest is here defined as those largely roadless mountain ranges that drain into the South Fork Payette River in the south and the North Fork Payette, Secesh, and South Fork Salmon Rivers to the east, west and north.

North of Boise, the Payette Crest at its southern end begins in the headwaters of the Middle Fork Payette River north of Crouch, stretching all the way northeast of McCall to the Warren Wagon road. The roadless western slope of the Crest, drier than in the east, ends as it reaches down into mid-elevation and extensively roaded National Forest lands.

The area encompasses the Peace Rock, Needles and Secesh roadless areas totaling 605,463 acres, and contains an astonishing diversity of habitat in the Payette and Boise National Forests. Just northwest of this roadless expanse, separated only by a few roads, lies the Patrick-Butte and French Creek areas (167,000 roadless acres), which drains into the mighty Main Salmon River east of Riggin. Old growth Douglas-fir and ponderosa pine dominate the overstory until giving way to white bark pine and subalpine fir at higher altitudes. Within this mosaic are abundant grand fir, lodgepole pine, Engleman spruce, Pacific willow, scouler willow, Rocky mountain maple, snowberry, huckleberry and common chokecherry with a diverse variety of forbs and grammanoids in the understory. Inhabited by mountain goats, black bears, cougars, the place is literally begging for grizzly bears to come browse in ursal Eden.

PEACE ROCK
On the southern end of the Payette Crest lies the 184,327 acre Peace Rock roadless area. Since 1983, the area which is headwaters for the South Fork Salmon, Middle Fork Payette, and Deadwood Rivers, has lost 13,030 acres to road building and logging.

The center piece of the area, the 8,139-foot Peace Rock, is surrounded by dry, steep terrain, rugged rock outcrops and jagged ridges, and interspersed with a series of varying meadows, brushfields, and forests. The Valley Creek drainage is "noted for its outstanding, remote hunting opportunities due to the lack of trails or other convenient, travel routes."

An additional 5,420 acres would be removed from future wilderness consideration should the long-delayed Silver Creek timber sale go forward. Thirty-four neotropical migrant songbirds have been documented in three plots in the Silver Creek drainage. Several conservation groups have agreed to work with Boise Cascade Corporation and the Forest Service in monitoring effects of the logging. Excessive motorcycle use has spoiled many areas in the Middle Fork Payette watershed, including Silver Creek.

At the southern end of Peace Rock lies the headwaters of the Middle Fork Payette River. The entire watershed contains only two isolated remnant populations of bull trout. Sediment in the Middle Fork and re-channeled stream flows near the community of Crouch have reduced the quality of the river's migratory and overwintering habitat for the native fish. Restoring the Middle Fork as viable bull trout habitat will require streambank repairs and extensive road removal to reconnect isolated spawning rearing tributaries.

Across from the Scott Mountain southeast of Peace Rock lies the 50,000 acre Deadwood roadless area.

NEEDLES
North of Peace Rock lies the 162,430 acre Needles roadless area, a higher elevation range divided from Peace Rock by the Warm Lake Highway and its extensive road network. With 50 alpine lakes, the eastern side of the Crest streams flow down through the steep and lush Salmon breaks country to the South Fork Salmon River, where the river's floodplain provides superb winter range for elk. Even with the four lower Snake River dams and the excessive sediment loading in the watershed, the South Fork is still home to a few wild salmon.

Travel corridors for lynx, fisher, and wolverine exist at higher elevations. The Buckhorn Creek watershed, a major tributary of the South Fork and a key watershed for salmon and bull trout, have been hit hard by logging on the steep river breaks and a mass wasting event prompted by the timber access road. The Payette National Forest has done an excellent job in obliterating the Buckhorn Creek road. County commissioners are obstructing the Forest's pursuit of more road obliteration.

The southwest tip of Needles faces imminent logging of old growth ponderosa pine in the North Gold Fork, a tributary of the Gold Fork River that flows to the North Fork Payette River. Boise Cascade Corp., which bought the trees nearly three years ago after a one year delay forced by AWR, owns roughly 25 percent of the Gold Fork River watershed. The logging has not yet begun due to Endangered Species Act consultation on bull trout.

Heavily roaded (nearly 3 miles per square mile) and trounced by cows, the Gold Fork River watershed was once abundant with bull trout. The North Gold Fork contains one of only two isolated remnant pop-ulations of bull trout left in the Gold Fork River watershed, all of what remains in the entire North Fork Payette River system.

Another timber sale, this one in the Kennally Creek drainage - a tributary to the Gold Fork River where bull trout were last seen in the creek in 1985 - would remove 542 acres from wilderness consideration. Extensive road obliteration and drastically reduced livestock grazing are necessary if the resident bull trout have any chance of recovering in the Gold Fork River watershed.

North of Needles on the other side of the Lick Creek Summit road lies the 258,706 Secesh River roadless area, perhaps the most remote of all. The Secesh River is a main tributary to the South Fork Salmon River. In the Upper Secesh basin, lodgepole and subalpine fir dominate, with fire return intervals of as long as 300 years. The Patrick-Butte and French Creek areas, separated from the Secesh by a few logging roads, includes many tributaries to the Main Salmon, eleven of which (all containing bull trout) experienced road blowouts New Years Eve, 1996. Some areas, especially on the southern part of Patrick-Butte, suffer from severe cow damage and All Terrain Vehicles. The Fourth Gulch timber sale is planned in the area.

Pauperization of native biological diversity has proceeded in spite of the myriad of laws designed to protect our public lands. Protection of habitat diversity is our paramount issue. This includes protecting not only the rugged and high rocky areas but also restoring the lower elevations, where habitat diversity has suffered severe setbacks. By establishing these roadless areas as Wilderness, NREPA elevates the importance of habitat diversity while also providing a model for restoring and reconnecting degraded habitats. Examples are the Middle Fork Payette and Gold Fork watersheds mentioned above. In this way, we offer solutions to protect ecosystems and restore watersheds by producing jobs that strengthen surrounding communities.

Don Smith is AWR's Idaho representative.
Lee Mercer is a photographer and avid backpacker residing in Boise, Idaho.