Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest

The Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forests spread across about four million acres of north-central Idaho, up against the Montana line -- two old forests, the Nez Perce and the Clearwater, run as one unit since around 2012. This is some of the wildest country left in the lower 48: steep timbered canyons, the Bitterroot Mountains, and huge tracts of roadless wilderness, including part of the Frank Church-River of No Return, the largest unbroken wilderness in the contiguous states. It is Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) homeland, and the ground Lewis and Clark nearly starved crossing on the Lolo Trail in 1805 -- the tribe fed them and helped them on. Cool bonus: the Lochsa and Selway rivers that run through here were part of the very first set of Wild and Scenic Rivers Congress ever protected, back in 1968.

The place

The Nez Perce-Clearwater sits in north-central Idaho, right up against the Montana border along the crest of the Bitterroot Mountains. It is really two forests -- the Nez Perce and the Clearwater -- managed as a single unit since an administrative combination around 2012, and together they cover roughly four million acres. This is steep, deep, hard country: timbered canyons, wild rivers, and enormous stretches of roadless wilderness where you can walk for days without crossing a road. It is the homeland of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) people, and it holds one of the most storied pieces of ground in the American West -- the Lolo Trail, where Lewis and Clark nearly starved crossing the mountains in 1805.

History

The name honors the Nimiipuu, the people history calls the Nez Perce, whose traditional homeland this country is; 'Clearwater' is the river and the land the other half of the forest is named for. The Lolo Trail across these mountains was an ancient Indigenous travel and trade route long before any wagon or explorer used it. In 1805 the Corps of Discovery -- Lewis and Clark -- crossed the Bitterroots on that trail in early snow, cold and out of food, and came down half-starved onto the Weippe Prairie, where the Nez Perce fed them and helped them build canoes to continue west. Relations were not always so kind: in 1877 the Nez Perce War broke out in this landscape, with the opening fight at White Bird Canyon and battles along the Clearwater, before Chief Joseph and his people began their long flight back over the Lolo Trail and across Montana toward Canada. The two national forests that make up the unit today were joined under a single administration around 2012.

Wildlife & plants

This is famous elk country -- the Clearwater and its high timbered ridges have drawn elk hunters for generations. You will also find moose, mule and white-tailed deer, mountain goats on the high rock, black bears in good numbers, and mountain lions. Gray wolves range across this landscape now; they were reintroduced to central Idaho's Frank Church wilderness country in 1995 and 1996 and spread out from there, and the Nez Perce Tribe went on to lead much of Idaho's wolf recovery work. In the rivers are two of the great travelers of the fish world: wild steelhead and Chinook salmon that leave the Pacific and climb hundreds of miles up the Columbia, Snake, and Clearwater -- often 500 to 800 miles inland -- to spawn in these headwaters, among the longest such runs left in the contiguous United States. Native westslope cutthroat and bull trout live in the colder tributaries.

Notable features

The forest's crown jewels are its wilderness areas: much of the Selway-Bitterroot along the Montana line, part of the Frank Church-River of No Return (the biggest unbroken wilderness in the lower 48), and the Gospel-Hump Wilderness on the Nez Perce side. The Lochsa, Selway, and Middle Fork Clearwater rivers are legendary for whitewater and for wild fish. U.S. Highway 12 -- the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway, still called the Lewis and Clark Highway by locals -- follows the Lochsa through the heart of the forest, one of the great drives in the West. High above it runs the Lolo Motorway (Forest Road 500), a rough, seasonal, high-clearance track that traces the ancient Nez Perce and Lewis and Clark route along the ridgetops. Tucked along Highway 12 is the DeVoto Memorial Cedar Grove of ancient redcedar, and buried deep in the Selway-Bitterroot is Moose Creek, a fly-in backcountry ranger station reached only by air or a long walk.

Cool to know

• When Lewis and Clark crossed the Bitterroots here on the Lolo Trail in September 1805, they hit early snow and ran so low on food they were reduced to eating some of their own horses, with little left in the packs but portable soup and candle tallow -- the roughest stretch of their whole journey to the Pacific.
• The Lochsa and Selway rivers here belong to the very first class of Wild and Scenic Rivers ever protected: the 1968 Act's original set of eight, as part of the Middle Fork Clearwater system. They have run free and undammed ever since.
• The forest takes in part of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness -- at roughly 2.4 million acres, the largest unbroken wilderness area in the lower 48 states.
• Some of the steelhead and Chinook salmon that spawn in these headwaters have traveled hundreds of miles from the ocean -- often 500 to 800 miles up the Columbia, Snake, and Clearwater -- among the longest inland fish migrations left in the country.
• Moose Creek is one of the most remote ranger stations in the lower 48: deep in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, it has no road to it at all -- you get there by small plane onto a backcountry airstrip or by hiking in for miles.
• The DeVoto Memorial Cedar Grove along U.S. 12 shelters ancient western redcedars, some said to be well over a thousand years old. It is named for the writer and conservationist Bernard DeVoto, who loved to camp there -- and whose ashes were scattered over the grove.