Goat Ridge in the Scotchman Peaks.

Across the vast public lands of northern Idaho and northwestern Montana there are many rugged roadless areas. On the Idaho Panhandle none of these wildlands are protected as wilderness and in western Montana only a small percentage of land holds such protection.  The Scotchmans remain pristine because they have been largely forgotten.  With many unnamed peaks, the heart of the Scotchmans is tucked out of sight and out of mind. What timber and minerals exist are hard enough to get to that they’re not economically attractive.  But as
our society grows it continues its desire to develop and “own” the last
unnamed, untamed places.  As technology grows along with population, the pressures and potential threats from mechanized recreation increase.

Access to the Scotchmans’ interior is made difficult by imposing mountain slopes, as well as by rock and alder-choked creeks.  Yet the Scotchmans holds more than mere high elevation rock and ice. These steep divides are separated by high basins and deep valleys, producing great wellsprings of biological diversity, harboring numerous and varied habitats.  As a vital link in the Yukon to Yellowstone Corridor, the Scotchmans provide special habitat for a number of threatened and endangered species including grizzly bear, bull trout, lynx and wolf.  The Scotchmans are home to sensitive species such as mountain goat and wolverine. Big game abounds—trophy elk and mule deer are common; magnificent moose and black bear are found in the Scotchmans’ hidden glens.

While preserving the Scotchmans makes sound ecological sense, it also makes good economic sense. The Sonoran Institute has concluded that western counties with designated wilderness have the greatest economic vitality. Population growth and economic development in the west depend on the “quality of life” of a community. Wilderness designation preserves a significant aspect of that quality of life.  Preserving the Scotchmans would bring added economic value to surrounding communities.  Designating the Scotchmans as wilderness will bring both economic and ecological benefits to local communities, now and for generations to come. —For more information visit www.scotchmanpeaks.org

Scotchman's Peak Broadwalk
Dates: July 26-30, 2007
Location: near Sand Point, ID
Cost: $125 tent campers, $135 RV parking , or $190 for bed in shared room bunkhouse. 
This is a classic Broadwalk where we’ll learn about and walk in an area proposed for wilderness designation. We'll spend four nights/three full days learning about a little known chunk of wild country in the Cabinet Mountains that straddles the Idaho/Montana state line—the 88,000 acre Scotchman's Peak roadless area.  We are basing out of the Clark Fork Field Campus (www.clarkforkfieldcampus.com), where we’ll have a choice of accommodations and an indoor dining/meeting room where we can avoid bad weather and mosquitoes. Yummy breakfasts and dinners will be provided each day by our camp cook. Folks from the Friends of the Scotchman Peaks, the local grassroots wilderness advocacy organization, will guide us on an array of special hikes and tell us why this area deserves permanent protection as wilderness.  We'll help the Forest Service with a service project and hear from folks from both Idaho and Montana on wilderness efforts in those states.  There is a groundswell of support for wilderness designation of the Scotchman’s and Broads wants to add to it.

Click here to register for this event.