Get Lost

You don't need lots of area to experience a wilderness hunt. Any trip that pulls you beyond a place of comfort and security qualifies. Still, archetypal wilderness, vast and roadless, delivers what you might call a classic adventure. The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness as "an area where man himself is a visitor who does not remain . . . an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence . . . protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions." Wilderness designation was subsequently reserved for parcels of "at least 5,000 acres" or a size that allowed for practical management.

Some designated Wilderness is much bigger--the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho, for example. In 1931 the U.S. Forest Service declared 1,090,000 acres as the Idaho Primitive Area. Subsequent roadless designations included the nearby Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, which in 1963 was split into three parts. The Salmon River Breaks Primitive Area and Magruder Corridor, like the parent Selway-Bitterroot, remained roadless.

A year later, Idaho Senator Frank Church helped sponsor legislation resulting in the Wilderness Act. It protected nine million untrammeled acres as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. In 1968 Church introduced the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, an additional shield for remote arteries like the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The Senator followed up in 1980 with the Central Idaho Wilderness Act, which spawned the River of No Return Wilderness--an area comprising the Idaho Primitive Area, the Salmon River Breaks Primitive Area and a piece of the Magruder Corridor. The Act added 125 miles of the Salmon to the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. In 1984, Congress renamed Senator Church's crown jewel The Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. He died just weeks later.

At 2,366,757 acres, this tract is the biggest designated Wilderness Area in the continental U.S. If you want additional trail miles, trek on into the Gospel Hump Wilderness, bordering the Frank Church on the west. Those two parcels, with surrounding undesignated roadless forest, total 3.3 million acres. Only a single dirt track cleaves them from the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness to the north. The Frank Church includes sections of several mountain ranges: the Salmon River Mountains, the Clearwater Mountains and the Bighorn Crags.

Threaded by the riotous Middle and Main Forks of the Salmon River, it offers some of the best whitewater rafting in the country. The precipitous gorges provide habitat for bighorn sheep. On the rims you'll find mule deer and elk that rarely see hunters. Mountain goats and moose also call the Frank Church home, as do record-class mountain lions and a growing population of wolves. Whitetail deer have pushed farther into the bottoms of this wilderness.

Managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, the River of No Return has several remote airstrips whose use was grandfathered into the original legislation to provide access to areas that would otherwise be practically unreachable. Jet boats have likewise been allowed, for upstream travel on currents so swift as to preclude hand-powered boats.