Idaho Wilderness Trail: The Nitty Gritty
If you are not familiar with the IWT, one of America's newest and most rugged through-hikes, I would recommend reading about it from the people who created it, Mike Lanza at The Big Outside and Justin Hayes of the Idaho Conservation League.
Disclaimer: In Idaho the wilderness is still wild, and you could die doing a trip like this! Backpacking in remote locations is inherently risky. I am merely presenting what my Dad and I did as well as some possible alternatives, not an authoritative guide to the IWT or telling you what you should do. The conditions of trails, stream crossings, roads, airstrips, campsites, and many other aspects of this trip can change day-by-day, so don't expect things to be the same as described here or elsewhere on this blog.
If you want to hike the IWT, you must be willing to look at topo maps until your eyes bleed. |
First, some thank-you's:
Without the help of many knowledgeable, dedicated, and kind individuals Dad and I probably would have perished in the backcountry or worse yet, never even started the trail in the first place. First off, thank you to Mike Lanza for envisioning and mapping the IWT. Thank you to my mom Kim and girlfriend Rachel, who gave up a ton of time to drop us off, meet us in Stanley, and then pick us up again. We're so lucky to have you! Thank you to Terry and Diane of Cottonwood, ID for the home cooked meal, a ride on the Magruder Road, and great conversations about fish. Thank you to Anna and Corey for the local knowledge, homemade food, and other crucial assistance. Thank you to Tim Bruer for monitoring wildfires for us. Thank you to the Salmon River Lodge crew, especially Dylan, Kaylee, and Bill, for their hospitality. Thank you to the Flying B Ranch and crew for flying in a package for us. Thank you Marge for making sure out package arrived safely in the Selway. Thank you to all the trail crews who give blood, sweat and tears to maintain these wonderful trails. Thank you to all the wildland firefighters, who risk their lives to protect our forests. Thank you to all of the rafters who slid us some cold ones.
My IWT CalTopo Map
Credit goes to Mike Lanza for the original GPS files of the main IWT route, thanks Mike! The variations and detours were created by my dad and me. Read on for some of the explanations behind them.
Timing the trip
The late timing of our trip meant dealing with snow and cold temps, such as this day in the Bighorn Crags |
We choose to do this trip from September 9th to October 5th, 2022. Ideally we would have started earlier to reduce our likelihood of encountering snow and cold temps, but time constraints created by my raft guiding season didn't allow for this.
The timing of the trip was the deciding factor in our decision to hike north to south. We knew that if we did get a significant dump of snow that made it unsafe to continue, it would be far, far easier to retreat from the Sawtooths or from the relatively low elevation and flat section along the Middle Fork Trail in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness ("the Frank")than it would be from the high country of the massive Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness (SWB) in the northern stretches. Additionally, stopping in Stanley late in the trip allowed us to grab cold weather gear and would have allowed us to easily bail to Boise if the weather forecast called for serious snow.
I would not recommend attempting this trip until at least July 1st due to snow in upper elevations as well as high flows at some of the stream crossings. However, depending on the year large amounts of snow could stick around for far longer than this. I suggest checking the snow levels as measured at various SNOTEL sites in the area as well as historic satellite imagery to determine historic snow cover both on the early and late ends of the season. One last small note: doing the trip during peak river floating season (generally mid-May to mid-September on the Middle and Main Salmon and June to mid-August on the Selway) will most likely mean sharing river camps with rafters. The upside to this is lots of free beer and food; the downside is they will still be partying long after you want to go to sleep!
Resupply
This might be the hardest part of the trip. Huge thanks to my Dad for figuring this out for us, I guess a PhD in supply chain management is good for something after all. Resupply on this trail is drastically more difficult than on other long trails. With the exception of Stanley on ID 21, you will be no where near a town where you could buy groceries or receive a package. Here is how we resupplied our trip:
- Our first package was flown into the SWB. I've been asked by our contact there not to reveal which airstrip so that they are not overwhelmed by dirty hiker trash. ;)
- Our second package we mailed to the HQ of the Salmon River Lodge at Corn Creek and the staff brought our package to the lodge itself. We stayed the night at this lodge (and had a great time), I'm not sure if they would do this for a non-guest.
- Our third package was flown into the Flying B ranch along the Middle Fork of the Salmon. We mailed a package to their HQ in Salmon and they were kind enough to fly it into the ranch for free. They also operate a store, which allows you to stock up on beer, ice cream, and not much else. But what else do you really need?
- We grabbed our last resupply in Stanley from my mom Kim and girlfriend Rachel, who were kind enough to meet us there.
Here are a few other options we considered:
- Paying an air taxi service to fly a package in: There are several companies who will fly in a package for you to any one of the public airstrips in the SWB or the Frank. I have heard that some of the private ranches will allow these services to drop off a package as well, if you pre-arrange it with the ranch. Arnold Aviation out of Cascade, ID is a great option for the southern end of the IWT. Choice Aviation out of Hamilton, MT services the northern part. Sawtooth Flying Service out of McCall, ID services the entire area. You may be able to send your package on a flight that they already have scheduled in order to keep costs down. Keep in mind that wildfire smoke can make it impossible for them to deliver the package.
- Some airstrips, such as Indian Creek in the Frank, have a designated critter-proof box for air services to leave packages. At other airstrips that have an occupied USFS building, such as Moose Creek in the SWB, you might be able to prearrange for the folks there to hold onto the package for you. Hopefully I don't need to tell you that its a bad idea to leave a cardboard box full of food sitting unguarded in the wilderness.
- Using the river: I'd considered asking one of my friends that work as guides on the Middle and Main Salmon to drop off a package at some point along their float. However, these trips get canceled due to a variety of reasons and river guides are a notoriously unreliable bunch, so we were worried about getting left hungry by this option. It may be possible to mail a package to an outfitter and have them drop it to you at one of the put-ins or take outs (Boundary Creek, Indian Creek, Corn Creek on the Salmon and Magruder on the Selway).
- Horse Packers: lots of hunting outfitters operate camps in the area, they may be willing to pack it in for a fee.
- Stashing a package from the road: we flirted with the idea of driving up and stashing a package along the road at various points. Not sure how you would keep the critters away from it for such a long time. This might work along the Nez Perce Road between the Frank and the SWB or at one of the THs nearest the Bighorn Crags in the Frank (get ready for a long and bumpy ride!).
- Mail a package to Stanley and/or North Fork. This requires hitch-hiking, which might not be possible later in the season when traffic to these towns in very low.
Mike Lanza, who first envisioned the IWT, has some other ideas for resupply in the comments of this post at his blog, the Big Outside.
Wildfire
The Huckleberry Fire flaring up in the valley below us in the SWB. |
As far as receiving fire information once you are in the backcountry, we highly recommend having a trusted contact in the frontcountry monitor the fire situation for you and relay information to you via satellite communication, such as a Garmin InReach. Additionally, we were in contact with the public relations officials for several of the national forests that we passed through as a backup channel for fire information. These public servants carry cell phones for work, and after establishing contact with them while we were in the frontcountry, they allowed us to message their cell phones via our InReach later on. The phone numbers for these folks are typically listed on InciWeb under the fires that they are responsible for. Once on the trail we only needed to contact one of these officials once. Far along on the Middle Fork Trail in the Frank, smoke started rolling in rapidly and we were concerned a fire may have flared up due to lightning the night before. The official let us know that the smoke had blown in from near Jerome and there was nothing to worry about. Tax dollars at work!
Campsites
I would suggest referencing river guidebooks for maps of campsites along the Selway and Salmon. Additionally, this route passes by some USFS campgrounds if you prefer a pit toilet to a cat hole. Maybe I'll share my complete map of campsites when I write my IWT guidebook for fame and money.
Road Sections
We were fortunate enough to not walk any of the road sections, which would have added at least three days and been really, really, really boring.
- A wonderful couple from Cottonwood that we met at the Paradise CG gave us a ride on the Magruder Road. Hitchhiking the Magruder might be tough outside of hunting season. Only one launch per day is allowed on the Selway during rafting season, so you may have some luck there but you might have to wait a while.
- We paid the Salmon River Lodge where we stayed to drop us off at Panther Creek to skip Salmon River Road section. The Salmon River Road is extremely busy during rafting season, so you might have more luck there.
- We had planned ahead to meet up with some family in Stanley who gave us a ride on highway 21. There is tons of traffic on this highway during the summer and early fall. You could probably still find someone to hitchhike with in October.
Trail Conditions
Slow going along Horse Cr. meant a less-than-ideal camp when we couldn't make the miles we wanted to.
One of the most significant ways in which the IWT differs from other long trails is that it covers a lot of area where trails are infrequently maintained and sometimes not maintained at all. The constituent trails can be extremely choked with underbrush and deadfall, sometimes to the point that they are impossible to find, slowing your pace from miles per hour to hours per mile. Thankfully, each Forest Service ranger district (RD) publishes a report several times per year about the maintenance of each trail. The trails are typically listed by their number, which shows up as a tiny red number next to the trail on USFS maps. Because this is the federal government that we're dealing with, they make these reports almost impossible to find on their websites. I'll link them here to save you hours of searching. I am fairly confident that these links will auto-update with the newest reports when they are published, but please let me know if this information ever seems out of date:- Lochsa RD and Moose Creek, Nez Perce-Clearwater NF : https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd539475.pdf
- Most of the SWB section.
- If you are inclined towards paper maps like we are, we highly recommend the Cairn Cartographics Selway-Bitterroot North Half Map. It is detailed yet highly readable. Most importantly for this area, it gives you an indicator of how often each trail is maintained.
- West Fork RD, Bitterroot NF: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd3835284.pdf
- Southern SWB and far northern Frank
- North Fork RD and Middle Fork RD, Salmon-Challis NF: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5362726.pdf
- Part of the Frank north of the main Salmon and all of the Frank below the main Salmon.
- Sawtooth NRA: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/sawtooth/alerts-notices/?cid=fseprd1004270
A few things to note when interpreting these reports:- Trail conditions deteriorate rapidly over time in the SWB north of the Selway River due to the lush, dense ecosystem there. Trail conditions deteriorate rapidly over time in burned areas, such as the headwaters of the Selway River, due to immense amounts of deadfall. I would beware of trails not maintained in the past two years in these areas.
- Trail conditions might not match what you would expect from reading the report. For example, trail #676 (Upper Rhoda Creek) in the Moose Creek RD was listed as "Entire length cleared in 2019". However, the trail was nonexistent in many areas and we saw no signs of maintenance, such as cut logs, that made us think that this was true until we hit the very lower section of the trail near the confluence with Grotto Cr. This could be due to the rapid trail deterioration mentioned above, but we believe that someone in the Forest Service or affiliated trail crew made a mistake.
Taken together, we believe that you will need to determine for yourself exactly which trails to take as you hike the IWT. I have laid out a few variations that we took further on in this post. Because of this, it seems to us that there will never be one correct path to take on the IWT! We view this as reflective of the unique character of the trail and the rugged nature Idaho wilderness as a whole, not necessarily a flaw.
Slow going along Horse Cr. meant a less-than-ideal camp when we couldn't make the miles we wanted to. |
- Lochsa RD and Moose Creek, Nez Perce-Clearwater NF : https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fseprd539475.pdf
- Most of the SWB section.
- If you are inclined towards paper maps like we are, we highly recommend the Cairn Cartographics Selway-Bitterroot North Half Map. It is detailed yet highly readable. Most importantly for this area, it gives you an indicator of how often each trail is maintained.
- West Fork RD, Bitterroot NF: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd3835284.pdf
- Southern SWB and far northern Frank
- North Fork RD and Middle Fork RD, Salmon-Challis NF: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5362726.pdf
- Part of the Frank north of the main Salmon and all of the Frank below the main Salmon.
- Sawtooth NRA: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/sawtooth/alerts-notices/?cid=fseprd1004270
A few things to note when interpreting these reports:
- Trail conditions deteriorate rapidly over time in the SWB north of the Selway River due to the lush, dense ecosystem there. Trail conditions deteriorate rapidly over time in burned areas, such as the headwaters of the Selway River, due to immense amounts of deadfall. I would beware of trails not maintained in the past two years in these areas.
- Trail conditions might not match what you would expect from reading the report. For example, trail #676 (Upper Rhoda Creek) in the Moose Creek RD was listed as "Entire length cleared in 2019". However, the trail was nonexistent in many areas and we saw no signs of maintenance, such as cut logs, that made us think that this was true until we hit the very lower section of the trail near the confluence with Grotto Cr. This could be due to the rapid trail deterioration mentioned above, but we believe that someone in the Forest Service or affiliated trail crew made a mistake.
Taken together, we believe that you will need to determine for yourself exactly which trails to take as you hike the IWT. I have laid out a few variations that we took further on in this post. Because of this, it seems to us that there will never be one correct path to take on the IWT! We view this as reflective of the unique character of the trail and the rugged nature Idaho wilderness as a whole, not necessarily a flaw.
Trail Variations
We deviated from the main trail at several points along the trail for a variety of reasons, mostly due to a combination of wildfires and trail conditions.
Moose Creek Alternate
Moose Cr. Alternate. IWT is purple, our variation is yellow. |
Horse Heaven/Garden Cr Tr Alternate
This one is pretty simple. As we climbed into the Bighorn Crags, we continued up Tr. #121 instead of cutting onto #173 and #021. This was because #173 was last maintained in 2018. In this dry, open terrain this probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but #121 was maintained in 2021 and was a bit shorter with a little less climbing. In the future I would take whichever trail had been maintained more recently.
White Cr. Bridge Alternate
As we headed SW along the MF Salmon from Loon Cr, we crossed the White Cr Bridge to stay on #4001 instead of getting on #4001.1. This cut off about 0.5mi and a tiny amount of climbing, so take your pick.
Equipment
An incredible amount has been written about gear for long-distance backpacking. I won't discuss it too much here; if you have the research skills to put together an IWT trip then you can definitely figure out for yourself which gear to bring. However, I will highlight a few key pieces of gear and some other considerations for what to bring.
Backpack: We both used a ULA Catalyst and absolutely loved it. It felt comfortable carrying our heaviest loads, which were about 35 pounds after our resupplies. The most we ever went between resupplies was about 6 days.
Boots: We both wore the Arc'teryx Aerios FL Mid GTX hiking boots. It was nice having something lightweight and yet water resistant on the many rainy days. I was glad to have this style of boot over a heavier duty boot that I typically bring on off-trail backpacking trips in Idaho.
Rain gear: My Dad and I brought a rain jacket but not pants, a decision that we both ended up regretting. I have never brought rain pants to the Sawtooths or the Frank after a lifetime of summer backpacking and foolishly assumed that the climate would be the same as that, even much further north and in the fall. After just a light rain, the vegetation lining the trail soaked our lower bodies day after day. We also became quite cold in a snowstorm in the Bighorn Crags. Dad brought a rain skirt, which helped keep some of the water off his upper legs, but his boots still got soaked. Bringing gaiters instead of rain pants might help you save some weight and keep your boots dry, especially in the early season where cold storms are less of a concern.
Pants vs. shorts: our legs got absolutely thrashed by the brush in the SWB. Dad brought zip-off that he was able to put on in these situations; I only had shorts and had to rely on an incredibly stylish combination of a an Ace bandage on one shin and a cut up sock on the other. Bring pants.
Repair kit: We brought a repair kit that contained an extra shoe lace, several small tubes of Aquaseal as opposed to one big one, lots of tear tape, a small allen wrench for our stove, and a needle and thread. We used all of these items!
Communications: We carried a Garmin InReach Mini. Thankfully we did not have to use the emergency function, but it was incredibly helpful to have this to communicate with our friend who was monitoring wildfires, the hosts at lodges where we picked up our packages, and our family who picked us up.
Thank you for reading, I hope you find this information helpful whether you are in the middle of planning your own trip on the IWT or you are just curious about this wonderful route. I will be posting more information on the IWT in the future, so be sure to subscribe to my email list below so you don't miss it. If you have any further questions, please send me a message using the "Get in Touch" box on the sidebar or leave a comment below. Happy trails!
Sounds like a great trip! Thanks for the writeup!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure Steve, glad you liked it!
DeleteAbsolutely fantastic stuff. Do you feel like the IWT is meaningfully different from the experience the ICT gives you in the same wilderness areas? It seems like, from glancing at overlaid GPX tracks, that the routes overlap for ~50% of the trail.
ReplyDeleteThanks, glad you enjoyed it. I think the answer to your question depends a bit on the wilderness area:
Delete• I've traveled to pretty much every corner of the Sawtooths, and I can say without a doubt that the IWT follows a much better route through than the ICT through there. Way prettier.
•For the Frank, the IWT is going to give you more dramatic scenery by taking you through the lower sections of the Middle Fork canyon as well as the Bighorn Crags. The ICT cuts west through areas that are less stunningly beautiful, but are gorgeous and wild nonetheless. I should qualify this by saying that I have never hiked the western part of the Frank where the ICT splits from the IWT, so this opinion is mostly based on what others have told me and photos I have seen. The downside is that the IWT travels on the Middle Fork for a very long time, so during peak summer rafting season you would be inundated by floaters and have less of a pure wilderness experience. I know my Dad also got pretty sick of hiking along the same river for days at a time and would have preferred to be back in the high country. There are definitely options out there that would combine the most scenic areas with more solitude, and I would be happy to discuss.
• I have very little experience in the SWB. From my research and looking at a map, I think that in this area its a bit of a toss-up between the IWT and ICT. Hiking along the Selway is cool, but some of the ridge walks on the ICT look pretty rad. I think here it will be determined mostly by which trails have been maintained most recently or which sort of scenery you prefer. Both take the same route through the high country in the northern part. Both miss the Fenn Mountain area, which is the highest part of the wilderness, so it might be cool to take trail #3 and #206 to see that area better.
Hope this helps.
Hi Will.
ReplyDeleteI will hike the IWT starting on August 17th. Your blog along with the CalTopo map has been indispensible to me. I got a great initial Itinerary from Michael Lanza that was my starting point. I've got my resusupply arrangements set up and I am just now in the processing of double checking the trail conditions to ensure a good route. At present I do plan to take all of the alternative routes you have mapped, but I also would like to see more high country along the way. If you have some time to maybe talk about your thoughts on this I would be grateful.
Hi Darryl I'm planning to hike this trail a week after you, would love to connect and compare some notes. You can get a hold of me at marketing@sixmoondesigns.com
ReplyDelete