To travel to Grandjean is to journey into Idaho's rugged heart and the epicenter of the state's rich history of public land and forest management.
Grandjean is in the northwest corner of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area where ponderosa pines tower and the Sawtooth Mountains scrape the sky. In Grandjean, named for one of the state's earliest foresters, time itself seems to slow.
"There's nothing a little bit great about Grandjean," said Linda Lockett, who manages the centrally located Sawtooth Lodge. "Everything is huge great. It hasn't gotten commercialized. We're really laid back. People come up here to relax and enjoy it. It's just a fantastic place. That's all there is to it."
Lockett, who proudly calls herself "The Boss," is married to Rodney Lockett. Their son, Richard, also helps manage Sawtooth Lodge. The lodge and nearby cabins have been a family business for four generations, spanning 50 years, since 1954.
On a slow Sunday afternoon earlier this summer, the Locketts chatted in the shadowy corners of the historic Sawtooth Lodge. The overhead lights purred with the quiet hum of power produced on site with a World War I-vintage hydroelectric Pelton wheel turbine. A pipe funnels water from the top of a nearby ridge and drops it more than 500 vertical feet into the turbine, generating 200 pounds per square inch of pressure.
But Grandjean is more than the Sawtooth Lodge and the electricity generated there. Though less popular than Sawtooth Valley trailheads, it is a key access to the Sawtooth Wilderness Area. It is a place to hike, camp and ride horseback. It is a place to soak in the nearby Sacagawea Hot Springs. It is a place to fish the green, pristine waters of the South Fork of the Payette River as it tumbles northwest out of the towering Sawtooths.
Sawtooth National Recreation Area Special Uses Administrator Dave Fluetsch said the area is increasingly used as a wilderness access.
"One of the things that's growing in popularity is that it's an access to the wilderness area. I was there (recently), and the trailhead parking was completely full," Fluetsch said. "You'll see a lot of through hikers. Some people will meet in the middle (of the wilderness area) and trade car keys."
"The Boss" called Grandjean a "family oriented" place that is still a "good secret."
The lodge's promotional brochure puts it this way: "Not much has changed here in 50 years, where pines and spruce tower over the lodge and a cluster of log cabins."
Grandjean has a storied history that has been the subject of newspaper and magazine articles for 100 years. It is where one of the West's most educated early forest rangers hung his hat for a spell.
And that is where this story really begins. Before a colorful woman by the name of Babe Hansen opened a hunting lodge in Grandjean, the U.S. Forest Service occupied the area as a short-lived ranger station. Emile Grandjean, for whom the valley, a nearby mountain and a nearby creek are named, was one of the earliest supervisors of the Boise National Forest. He lived for a spell in a cabin he built near the base of Grandjean Peak.
"He did have a cabin up here," Linda Lockett said. "They built this lodge as a ranger station when he was up here, but it was only a ranger station for five or six years."
Grandjean, 74 at the time of his death in Caldwell, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He moved to Nebraska at the age of 17 and later moved to Idaho, first to the Wood River Valley and then to the Grandjean area in the late 1880s. Although he was a Dane, his name belies the country of his birth. His family was among the many Huguenots who fled France in the religious wars of the 17th century.
As a third-generation student of forestry in his native country, Grandjean was years ahead of the first Americans to receive formal academic training in the subject.
When the Sawtooth National Forest was created in 1905, he finally had the opportunity to apply for the work for which he was educated. So rare were trained foresters in the West at the time that Grandjean was promoted to supervisor of the Sawtooth and Payette national forests after only a year of service.
In 1908, the 5.5 million-acre national forest was divided into the Sawtooth, Boise and Payette national forests. From it also emerged parts of the modern-day Lemhi and Challis national forests. Grandjean was named supervisor of the Boise National Forest, with headquarters in Boise.
Then and now, the Boise National Forest included the upper South Fork of the Payette River valley, where the hamlet of Grandjean is still nestled among tree-enshrouded ridges and the inspiring backdrop of the Sawtooths.
Although the Grandjean area has remained in public ownership, the way it is governed changed in 1972, when Congress established the 756,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area, which includes three national forests, five Idaho counties and the headwaters of 10 Idaho rivers.
"The enabling legislation of the SNRA then provided direction of the management of the lands," Fluetsch said.
According to Congress, the SNRA is to be managed so that "the conservation and development of scenic, natural, historic, pastoral, wildlife, and other values" are preserved. The enabling legislation continues to state that the use and disposal of natural resources like timber, grazing and mining "will not substantially impair the purposes for which the recreation area is established."
And that, it appears, is what the managers of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area have done in the Grandjean area. It's a place where history and recreation meld together like the ancient granite of the Sawtooth Batholith, which created the towering crags of the Sawtooth Mountains and Grandjean Peak.
How to get there:
Grandjean, not far as the crow flies, is about a two-hour drive from the Wood River Valley. Travel north on Highway 75 to Stanley and turn west on Highway 21. After crossing Banner Summit, the road descends for several thousand feet. At the base of the pass, turn left (back to the east). Grandjean is a six-mile drive ahead on a maintained dirt road.
Grandjean is known for its natural beauty and for its colorful history. Grandjean Peak, the tallest summit pictured on the horizon, Grandjean Creek and the hamlet of Grandjean are all named for a former U.S. Forest supervisor, Emile Grandjean. Express photo by Greg Stahl
