page_title: Sawtooth National Forest
section_title: Wilderness
hierarchical_section_title: Sawtooth National Forest / Management / Wilderness
caption_attribution_description: English: Alice Lake in the Sawtooth Wilderness
context_page_description: Sawtooth National Forest is a National Forest that covers 2,110,408 acres in the U.S. states of Idaho and Utah. Managed by the U.S. Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it was originally named the Sawtooth Forest Reserve in a proclamation issued by President Theodore Roosevelt on May 29, 1905. On August 22, 1972 a portion of the forest was designated as the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, which includes the Sawtooth, Cecil D. Andrus–White Clouds, and Hemingway–Boulders wilderness areas. The forest is managed as four units: the SNRA and the Fairfield, Ketchum, and Minidoka Ranger Districts.
  Sawtooth National Forest is named for the Sawtooth Mountains, which traverse part of the SNRA. The forest also contains the Albion, Black Pine, Boise, Boulder, Pioneer, Raft River, Smoky, Soldier, Sublett, and White Cloud mountain ranges, as well as Hyndman Peak, the ninth-highest point in Idaho at 12,009 feet above sea level. Sawtooth National Forest contains land cover types which include sagebrush steppe, spruce-fir forests, alpine tundra, and over 1,100 lakes and 3,500 miles of rivers and streams.
context_section_description: The Sawtooth Wilderness was originally designated the Sawtooth Primitive Area in 1937 before becoming part of the National Wilderness Preservation System in 1972 under the Wilderness Act. Although entirely managed by Sawtooth National Forest, only about a quarter (25.33 percent) of the Sawtooth Wilderness lies within the area Congressionally designated as Sawtooth National Forest, with the majority (69.13 percent) lying in Boise National Forest and a relatively small portion (5.54 percent) in Salmon-Challis National Forest. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Sawtooth Wilderness has some of the clearest air in the lower 48 states.
  On August 7, 2015 President Barack Obama signed the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Jerry Peak Wilderness Additions Act creating the Hemingway–Boulders (67,998 acres or 27,518 hectares), Jim McClure–Jerry Peak (116,898 acres or 47,307 hectares), and White Clouds (90,769 acres or 36,733 hectares) wilderness areas covering a combined 275,665 acres (111,558 ha) of Sawtooth National Forest, Salmon-Challis National Forest, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land after it passed Congress on August 4, 2015. The Hemingway–Boulders Wilderness is entirely within SNRA, while all but 450 acres (180 ha) of the White Clouds Wilderness is in the SNRA, with the rest managed by the BLM. The Jim McClure–Jerry Peak wilderness is entirely outside the administered area of Sawtooth National Forest, but partially within the area designated as Sawtooth National Forest and thus managed by Salmon-Challis National Forest and the BLM. The 2015 bill and previous versions were introduced by Republican Representative Mike Simpson, while prior bills had proposed to designate 312,000 acres (126,000 ha) of wilderness as part of the controversial Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA). CIEDRA would have opened over 500,000 acres (200,000 ha) adjacent to the new wilderness areas to motorized vehicle use, given 5,693 acres (2,304 ha) of public land to local municipalities, and established a "no net loss" policy for motorized trails.
  Prior to the 2015 wilderness designations, the White Cloud and Boulder mountains were part of the largest unprotected roadless area in the United States outside of Alaska. In the absence of Congressional action that would designate the Boulder-White Clouds region as wilderness, the area had been studied for possible protection as a national monument by presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act. Former Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne initially studied the area for national monument status, but did not recommend it because Congressional action seemed likely. The 2015 bill passed after receiving increased attention when President Obama indicated he would designate a national monument in the area if the wilderness bill did not pass. Additionally, other large areas of the forest are parts of proposed wilderness areas, such as through the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. These other proposals have gained no support among Idaho's congressional delegation because the bills could place undue public use and development restrictions on Idaho's public lands.
  The Wilderness Act enhanced the protection status of remote or undeveloped land already contained within federally administered protected areas. Passage of the act ensured that no human improvements would take place aside from those already existing. The protected status in wilderness-designated zones prohibits road and building construction, oil and mineral exploration or mining, and logging, and also prohibits the use of motorized equipment and bicycles. The ways people may enter wilderness areas are on foot or on horseback.
caption: Alice Lake in the Sawtooth Wilderness
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