With an eagle's vantage of the Boulder and White Cloud mountains Thursday morning, the Idaho Conservation League's Central Idaho director pressed her nose to the glass and gazed across a wild landscape that is at the center of Idaho's ongoing land-use skirmishes.
"It boggles the mind what Idaho really has," said Linn Kincannon, her eyes focused on the rumpled topography below. "Central Idaho is really amazing. There's nothing else like it in the Lower 48."
The tranquility of the early-morning mountains gave no indication of the political maneuvering the ranges have effected. Inside the Beltway, Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson is preparing to move a mountain when he asks the Republican-dominated Congress to consider protecting a 300,011-acre chunk of the two mountain ranges as wilderness.
The first hearings could take place in September, and, if the legislative road is smooth, the bill could receive a presidential signature by the end of 2006.
"We have a year and three months," said Lindsay Slater, Simpson's chief of staff. "Yes, it's enough time. It's just a matter of when it gets moving."
As the Cessna airplane motored north over West Pass at the headwaters of the North Fork of the Big Wood River, the imposing landscape filled its windows.
The horizons were full of teeth. The ranges' peaks and valleys stretched for vast, wild distances. The sun was low on the eastern horizon, and the peaks and hills glowed with the verve of the early-morning light.
It's a land of breathtaking beauty. It's a land of intact wildlife habitat. It's a land enjoyed by diverse and varied people. It's also a land on the cusp between the past and present, between preservation and utilization.
Simpson has been working for more than six years to draft legislation that meets the needs of a variety of Central Idaho interest groups, and wilderness advocates are one of many.
The scope of the bill, like the rugged terrain inherent to Central Idaho, is vast. Simpson believes the bill, should it pass, is a precedent-setting piece of legislation.
"Essentially, Mike realized from the beginning that if there was going to be a wilderness component to this bill, that he would have to take care of the ranchers, motorized users and the local community in order to get to wilderness," Slater said. "We think that's unique. Without all three of those components included, you can't get to the fourth."
Simpson's bill encompassing the Boulder-White Clouds is called the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act. He introduced it in 2004 during the waning hours of the 108th Congress and reintroduced it in May 2005 with a few tweaks. It is a study in compromise, and most critics find something to applaud, just as most proponents find something to detest.
Among the tweaks already implemented was the scrapping of a plan to transfer 960 acres of Challis National Forest land near the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River to Custer County. Backlash from citizens and the conservation community was swift and spurred the alteration. Another change was to add language specifying that no new roads or trails will be built, and one off-road-vehicle play park will be built instead of four.
The big picture, however, is that the bill proposes three separate wilderness areas, $20.45 million in appropriations and 2,000 to 3,000 acres in land gifts to Custer and Blaine counties and to the cities of Stanley, Challis and Mackay.
Those are only small pieces to a much larger puzzle.
The bill would withdraw 131,616 acres from consideration for wilderness designation. It would create a 960-acre motorized recreation park near Boise. It would establish a program by which cattle ranchers in the East Fork of the Salmon River valley could retire their grazing allotments in exchange for payments from the government.
The bill could set another precedent by establishing wheelchair accessible trails into the White Clouds, one of them inside wilderness boundaries.
During a May press conference, Simpson said the bill is "as close to a compromise as you can get."
"This is probably not a bill anybody would sit down and write themselves," he said. "There are parts of this bill that if I was sitting down and writing it for me, I would change. That's what a compromise is all about."
Acknowledging the tenuous political chess match he has engaged in, Simpson said the bill is balanced on a "knife edge." But, like Slater, he said the legislation is a wilderness bill of tomorrow, which will legislate solutions to a variety of problems.
"We've always had this fight over where you would draw the lines," he said. "In this bill, we've expanded that debate into trying to take care of more of the regional problems other than the problems just in the (proposed wilderness)."
The Wilderness Society seems to agree. As one of two conservation groups that has had front-and-center seats to Simpson's negotiations, some of its representatives have said Simpson's method is worth the effort.
"If we just walk away from it, it doesn't do the wilderness protection part of it any good," said Craig Gehrke, The Wilderness Society's Idaho director. "There are other groups that have said this isn't the right way to go, but we're going to respectfully disagree."
But some conservation-oriented groups aren't so convinced Simpson's attempt will work. Nor are motorized-recreation advocates.
Members of the Sierra Club and a group of Stanley-area residents are voicing strong opposition to proposed land gifts in and around Stanley. Supporters of the Rockies Prosperity Act, which would designate wilderness throughout the Northern Rockies, have said Simpson's bill concedes too much.
Likewise, a group of Stanley-area snowmobilers have organized a campaign against the proposal because it includes too much wilderness. Conversely, the Custer County Commission in June adopted a resolution urging passage.
Slater declined to predict whether the opposition has a clear shot at killing the bill. Nonetheless, the opposition is clear.
"As with most gift horses, there is a price to pay, and the price for CIEDRA is high indeed," wrote Custer County residents Dan Hammerbeck, Howard Rosenkrance and Allan Getty in a June letter to their neighbors.
In particular, the three opponents questioned whether the massive appropriations specified will become reality.
"Whether you get the funding or not, you get the wilderness and lose most of the recreation now taking place there," they wrote. "That much is guaranteed. There is no question that Custer County is in economic trouble, due in no small part to the large proportion of its land in federal ownership. But what logical tie is there between economic recovery for the county and designating the heart of the Boulder-White Clouds as wilderness?"
They contended a relatively small proportion of the American people visit wilderness areas. Those who do spend money, but spend it in communities far from gateway cities, they said.
"Our conclusion after carefully studying CIEDRA remains the same; it is the wrong bill at the wrong time for Custer County. Remember, wilderness is forever, so take the time to get involved. Act today, tomorrow may be too late."
The Sierra Club, Seattle-based Western Lands Project, and a coalition of Stanley-area residents are equally outraged by a proposal in the bill to give Sawtooth National Recreation Area lands to Custer County and the city of Stanley.
"Many of us feel that we need to get back to basic public lands protection," said Janine Blaeloch, Western Lands Project director. "The broad concept of preserving public land is fading, and quid pro quo is accelerating, exacerbating it."
Blaeloch said a report her organization penned is stirring up "quite a bit of discussion" among the conservation community. The report is critical of Simpson's proposed land gifts.
"The discussion right now is pretty quiet (among conservation groups), but it's pretty intense. It's internal," she said. "Now I think, slowly, we're getting to the point where people are mad as hell."
Blaeloch said she does not like to use the word "precedent." She also said, however, that the bill establishes a paradigm whereby rural economic problems can be ameliorated by the disposal of federal lands.
"If this idea takes hold, we are in a heap of trouble with federal lands," she said. "What you're going to have is every county commissioner in the West lining up for their deal for the disposal of federal lands to boost their economy."
The real question is whether the criticism, or even the outright bill, are things House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., will pay attention to. Last year, Pombo stifled efforts to designate 106,000 acres of wilderness near Seattle, Wash.
Simpson said he obviously will need support from Pombo, as well as from the Idaho congressional delegation. When asked who would carry the bill in the Senate, should it make it that far, Simpson said he has talked with Idaho Sens. Mike Crapo and Larry Craig, but neither has indicated his support or opposition.
"I could look at any part of this and say it's potentially a bill killer," Simpson said. "I tried to bring the conservation groups together to where they're 51 percent in favor of it. And we tried to bring the other side to where they're 51 percent in favor of it. We're really walking a fine line here."
From the sky above the White Cloud Mountains, the political furor centering on the mountains below seemed distant.
Kincannon pointed to the eastern foothills of the Boulder and White Clouds, a low-lying area that could be protected as the Jerry Peak Wilderness Area.
"This is a bull elk haven," she said. "It is winter and summer wildlife habitat. It is not traditional wilderness. This is a big proposal on this side."
As the wild country slipped by, Bruce Gordon, president of EcoFlight, admired the view while he piloted the smooth, morning sky. He has flown some of the wildest parts of the planet, he said, and, still, Central Idaho stands out.
"It's as deserving as any place I've seen," he said. "It's just spectacular, and it's not just rocks and ice.
"Idaho has an unprecedented opportunity. This is a special place, and it can't be just left to a road. There are certain, special places that should be inviolate."
With a bird?s-eye view, the Boulder and White Cloud mountains tumble for great distances. Bruce Gordon, president of Aspen, Colo.-based EcoFlight, helps people see new perspectives on conservation issues. Express photos by Greg Stahl
