Sawtooth Mountains
Written by - Harlan
Hague: The best
place I have found to glimpse the western land as it was in 
the
last century, without squinting too much, is in the Sawtooth-Stanley country in
south-central Idaho. The Stanley Basin is cattle country. Split-rail fences
enclose pastures watered by snow-fed streams. The basin is bordered by three
mountain ranges with forty peaks over 10,000 feet and 300 high lakes. Streams
flowing from the Sawtooth Mountains merge in the valley to form the Salmon
River, the legendary "River of No Return."
The Sawtooth-Stanley country was first seen by
whites when a party of John Jacob Astor's fur trappers under Alexander Ross
explored it in 1824. They were impressed by the beauty of the country and the
abundance of game, including the valuable beaver. Others followed, American and
British.
The fur trappers were transients. It was gold that
eventually opened up the region. Placer gold was first found in the Stanley
Basin in 1863. Hard rock mining followed. Some mining towns of respectable size
were founded. Vienna on Smiley Creek had a population of 800 in 1882. Nearby
Sawtooth City in Beaver Canyon in the same year numbered 600 hardy souls. The
two towns of Custer and Bonanza on the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River had a
combined population of 5,000. They are all gone. The miners and their towns
vanished when the gold played out.
The largest town in the region now is Stanley, with
a year-round population of a few hundred. There is still the look of the old
West about it, with its rustic buildings and wide, dirt streets.
Dredging also was used to extract the basin's gold.
My wife's grandfather, Henry Willis, an electrical engineer from New York City,
owned a dredge that worked the valley of Stanley Creek. Another, the Yankee Fork
dredge, operated until 1953, working 7,000 tons of earth each day for a handful
of gold dust. It was abandoned at the head of the valley when it ran out of
ground to work.
The Yankee Ford dredge is still there and is open
for visitors. The road to it is built on miles of stone tailings. After visiting
the dredge, drive a mile further to the ghost town of Custer. The schoolhouse,
now an interesting museum of Custer artifacts, and a few other scattered
buildings remain.
The Sawtooth-Stanley country in the early 1970s was
a paradise waiting to be discovered and loved to death, the fate of too many
American beauty spots. After considerable debate on how the region could best be
spared destruction by unplanned, unsupervised use, protection was assured by the
creation in 1972 of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA).
The SNRA includes 754,000 acres, an area larger than
the state of Rhode Island. Recreational opportunities here include fishing, some
of the best
floatboating in the country, hiking in the 216,383 acre Sawtooth Wilderness
Area, an integral part of the SNRA, horsepack trips and trail rides,
snowmobiling and cross-country skiing on groomed trails, swimming and boating
and just plain relaxing at the NRA's dozens of campgrounds and picnic areas.
Tent camping is a bit chancy. I have tent camped
with my family twice at Iron Creek campground at the foot of the Sawtooths and
saw more rain than sun. Sites located some distance from the mountains should be
a bit drier. Throughout the SNRA, though, there are more campers, trailers and
recreational vehicles than tents.
The last time I visited the SNRA, it rained only
once, but it was a humdinger. I love a good lightning and thunder storm, but I
must admit that I felt very snug in my motel cabin the night it hit. The storm
announced itself with an explosion that shook the walls and, I was positively
convinced, removed the cabin next to ours.
I stepped outside at first light and stood in the
gentle rain, absolutely entranced. I looked down the line of the Salmon River,
which runs behind the motel, to the distant Sawtooths. There were dark, 
billowing
clouds overhead, but the mountains were bathed in a soft sunlight that flowed
through a break in the clouds. A rainbow with its foot at the base of the
mountain arched to the right toward the highest peaks. As I watched, it
continued to move in its arc until it touched the ground.
Immediately a second rainbow appeared just above the
first, moving again from left to right until it reached the ground, completing a
perfect double rainbow. But the dark clouds instantly lowered and it was gone,
as if mere mortals were permitted but the slightest glimpse of heaven.
Private development in the SNRA is closely
controlled, but not prohibited. Much property is still in private hands.
Remember that this is not a national park where the objective is to eliminate
private ownership following the creation of the park. Americans who have
traveled in Britain will recognize that the American NRA is similar in concept
to the British national park.
There are a variety of accommodations in the SNRA.
Most people camp, albeit in waterproof shells. There are more tents around
Redfish Lake
than elsewhere, suggesting that there is less rain there. Redfish Lake Lodge is
comfortable, log-built, providing all the services that even the most fastidious
vacationer might require, from restaurant and lounge to horseback riding and
boating. They will even smoke your fish with mountain hickory flavor. Motels,
stores and shops are located in and around Stanley.
The Sawtooth-Stanley country is still relatively
unknown. Sixty percent of the visitors are from Idaho, twenty percent from
California, and twenty percent from elsewhere. Usage is light, compared to the
heavy pressures on other like recreation areas in the West. Spaces are usually
available in campgrounds outside the Redfish Lake area with its lodge and store
and boating facilities.
This inevitably will change. Since the creation of
the SNRA, publicity has been sent throughout the United States, and license
plates from distant states are being seen with more frequency.
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