Becky Nourse, supervisor of the Sawtooth National Forest, had to avoid antelope on her drive through the scenic Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA). The SNRA protects 756,000 acres of spectacular scenery but has a small budget that has led to cuts in staffing. Some question whether it should have been designated a national park instead for more funding and visitor services. However, others believe the hybrid recreation area designation was the right choice to allow flexibility and prevent overdevelopment while protecting the landscape. Local volunteer groups have helped fill gaps by taking over operations of the visitor center and expanding interpretive programs.

1. http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/06/03/2140
730/sawtooth-national-recreation-area.html

2. Becky Nourse had to avoid three antelope on Idaho 75 as
she drove south May 19 through the panoramic valley
surrounded by the peaks of the Sawtooth Range and White
Cloud Mountains.
The weekend before Memorial Day, the road through the
Sawtooth National Recreation Area was nearly deserted. A
few hawks hunted the log-fenced meadows at the base of a
forest of green and red lodgepole pines that rise into the
snow-crested granite spires.

3. As Sawtooth National Forest supervisor, Nourse’s job
is to protect the 756,000-acre recreation area set
aside by Congress 40 years ago because of its
spectacular views, wildlife and fisheries.
But it’s not her only job.
She also manages the rest of the 2.1 million-acre
forest, which stretches south nearly to the Nevada
border. She has had to deal with budget cuts that
have left few rangers roaming the backcountry and
nearly forced her to close the visitor center at Redfish
Lake this year.

4. The U.S. Forest Service’s lack of money and focused
priorities has prompted some to question the 1972
decision to protect four mountain ranges, more than
1,000 lakes, 40 peaks higher than 10,000 feet and the
headwaters of four major Idaho rivers as a recreation
area instead of a national park. Parks generally get
higher profiles, bigger budgets, and better visitor
services and interpretive programs.
But Nourse, who worked as deputy ranger in the SNRA
more than a decade ago, thinks Idaho’s congressional
delegation made the right choice. Led by Democratic
Sen. Frank Church, Idaho leaders created a hybrid
recreation area that has withstood the test of time.

5. “It’s as much about what you don’t see as what you see,”
Nourse said.
You don’t see the valleys filled with subdivisions of
second homes stretching out from towns filled with
huge resort hotels, Walmarts and other chains — like
in Jackson, Wyo., near Grand Teton National Park.
Stanley has seen only minor development in the past
four decades, retaining its small, mountain-town
character.
What you do see is the result of the vision of a few
state leaders, activists and others who wanted the
landscape preserved.

6. Pat Ford, president of the Boulder-White Clouds Council,
which is dedicated to protecting the 500,000-acre roadless
area that lines the eastern side, hopes today’s generation
renews the vision.
Among his recommendations: Give the area more
independence and standing so its quality is recognized and
funded. And whatever the future holds, managers will have
to account for the changes coming from global warming, he
said.
“How can we prepare its lands, users and institutions for
the hot, hard weather to come?” Ford said SNRA advocates
must ask.

7. Church, Republican Sen. Len Jordan and Republican Reps.
Jim McClure and Orval Hansen championed the law
establishing the SNRA to protect fish and wildlife, halt
significant new development and retain the area’s pastoral
character. Their efforts came after a fight by
conservationists to stop an open-pit molybdenum mine at
Castle Peak in the White Clouds.
Cecil Andrus made the mine fight the centerpiece of his
successful 1970 gubernatorial campaign, broadening
support for the area and laying the groundwork for the
delegation’s work.

8. But a combination of Idaho Falls nuclear workers and
others who formed the Sawtooth Preservation Council
didn’t think the Idaho delegation was ambitious
enough.
Boyd Norton, a conservation photographer and former
nuclear engineer, remembers a meeting he and others
had with Church.
“He said, ‘Look, a national park is not in the cards,’ ”
Norton said.
“Looking back, I think Frank may have been wrong
about that,” Norton said.

9. But a national park might have stopped hunting in the
mountains. The pressure for the government to buy the
more than 25,000 acres of private land within the
boundaries — inholdings — would have been strong.
“I did not support a national park because of the
inholdings,” said Andrus, who later became President
Jimmy Carter’s Interior secretary.
And he agrees with Church’s assessment on whether the
area could have been protected as a park:
“They never could have gotten the horses to do that,”
Andrus said.

10. A National Park Service plan presented at the time would
have managed the valleys as national recreation areas and
the mountains as a national park, said John Freemuth, a
Boise State University political science professor and a
former park ranger. The national recreation area designation
allowed more flexibility.
The agency might have been able to accommodate inholders
and allow hunting, although it rarely does that.
Visitors to a Sawtooth National Park would have seen a
different place. As a national park, it inevitably would have
attracted more visitors. Today about 1. 2 million people visit
the SNRA annually.

11. Grand Teton National Park, which Freemuth said
might be a comparable model, gets 3.8 million visitors
who pay $25 per vehicle per week.
Had the Sawtooth been a park, surrounding
communities might have seen more visitors and
business.
“If it had been done intelligently, both Challis and
Salmon might have benefited,” Freemuth said.
Most of all, there would have been more money for
better visitor services and staffing. Grand Teton’s 2012
budget is $12.1 million, while the SNRA budget is just
$2.8 million.

12. The Sawtooth National Forest has long had a small
budget because it never had the big-money timber
that drove national forest budgets for decades and
laid the base for today’s forests. The SNRA has
suffered with it.
“The Forest Service never figured out what to do
with national recreation areas,” Freemuth said.
That’s seen most of all in the lack of interpretive
programs in the SNRA. Tight budgets forced the
Forest Service to cut its minimal interpretive staff at
the Redfish Lake Visitor Center,

13. and interpretive presentations were down to two a
week, said Gary Gadwa, president of the Sawtooth
Interpretive & Historical Association.
“We thought we were going to have to close the
visitor center,” Nourse said.
What happened next is what sets the Sawtooth National
Recreation Area apart.
Gadwa’s group teamed with volunteers from the Sawtooth
Society and private businesses to take over the visitor
center.
The Forest Service at first balked, said Gadwa, a retired
conservation officer in Stanley.

14. But with Nourse’s backing, the local groups remodeled the
center and expanded interpretive programs both at the
center and in the forest. They were able to hire a retired
SNRA employee as executive director.
This summer, programs are scheduled daily, and the groups
hope to reach out to more children, Gadwa said.
Volunteerism is at the heart of the Sawtooth Society,
started by Andrus; Hansen; Church’s widow, Bethine; and
the late McClure. The group was critical in efforts in the
1990s to get Sen. Mike Crapo to push for additional federal
funds to buy easements from landowners to prevent
development northwest of Stanley.

15. The group is still pushing for more money for
easements, though more than 90 percent of the private
land within the SNRA has had the development rights
purchased.
Since it formed in 1997, Sawtooth Society members have
raised more than $600,000 for 150 projects.
It is working with the Forest Service to buy — and close —
a state of Idaho gravel pit still used in the Sawtooth
Valley, said Gary O’Malley, the executive director.
Most of all, it has sponsored the Sawtooth Vision 20/20
process, which has brought together 40 stakeholder groups
to work on finding a common path for the SNRA’s future.

16. The Forest Service’s mission has changed in the past
few decades, so perhaps the agency can bring its own
shifting priorities for restoration and recreation to
the Sawtooths, several observers say.
“ I think there may very well be an opportunity to re-
brand the SNRA,” said O’Malley. “This is on our
radar screen.”
Nourse isn’t ready to weigh into that
discussion, which is full of political land mines.

17. But as summer approaches, tens of thousands of
Idahoans will drive up to camp, hike, boat, fish, hunt
and just soak up the scenery of a unique place.
For 40 years, Idahoans have stepped up as
volunteers, voters or supporters to keep the Sawtooths
special.
“People have a lot of ownership in that,” Nourse said.
Rocky Barker: 377-6484