Salmon at Sunrise
Perched at 8,944 feet, Salmon Mountain Lookout commands a view that stretches through Idaho across two wilderness areas and three states. Looking west on a clear day, you can make out the Seven Devils Mountains, just across the Snake River from the Oregon Border. Turn around to the east, and the Bitterroot and Beaverhead Mountains of Montana fade into the distance.
Located deep in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness along the Magruder Corridor Road, the lookout has been staffed by volunteers since 1982. The Forest Service took many lookouts out of commission during the early ‘80s, sometimes even burning them to the ground to avoid maintaining them. Salmon Mountain was saved from the match thanks to a small group of people who donated their time to staff the lookout for the fire season.
I know this place. The first time I spent the night there, I was two weeks old. Since then, I have been back almost every summer. In the last 20 years, I’ve seen fires torch trees with 100-foot flames, watched wolves disappear into the forest and felt the steady pressure of civilization invade this arguably wild land. After all, it’s hard to call something capital-W Wilderness when a road runs right through the middle and has fewer potholes than my driveway.
During summer, tourists point their 40-foot mobile homes across the largest wilderness area in the lower 48, wondering if there are any gas stations in Darby, MT. The end of tourist season, to a small extent, provides the feeling that this area is again “untrammeled by man.”
In the accompanying photo essay, I have tried to capture Salmon Mountain Lookout in late autumn, when the wilderness is a bit closer to what it was meant to be.
