The new and improved Bethine and Frank Church Overlook, formerly known as the Galena Overlook, could be reopened to the public by the week of Aug. 23.
The facility will include a viewing plaza with decorative masonry, viewing scopes and benches for tired travelers. Shawn Robnett, assistant forest engineer with the Sawtooth National Forest, said signs describing the area and its history will be displayed in the plaza. The facility will also be fully wheelchair-accessible.
The new building is the work of CMEC Inc., a contracting and construction firm based out of Post Falls. Al Welch, project manager for CMEC, said most of the work will be completed by the facility's opening, though there are a few details that won't be finished until the end of September. According to Robnett, the new building's large sign won't be completed until September or possibly October.
Welch said the project has been a challenge, mainly due to its location on the north side of Galena summit.
"We've had to fight weather conditions through the whole thing," he said. "It's been a little bit of a challenge, but we worked through it."
The scenic overlook remodel began in 2009, in an effort to update the most-visited site in the 756,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area, located northwest of Ketchum.
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The site provides views of the Salmon River headwaters, the Sawtooth Valley, the foothills of the White Cloud Mountains and much of the Sawtooth Mountains as well. It will be accessible year-round.
Located north of Ketchum along state Highway 75, the overlook is en route to Smiley Creek and Stanley. It formerly served as a pit stop for those heading into the Sawtooth National Forest. However, the remodel has been a source of contention, as the public restrooms that formerly occupied the site have been removed to save money.
Due to extremely low temperatures during the winter, the restrooms were only usable during a several-month window in the summer. Robnett said that there is room at the site for future restrooms, and Welch said it would be "relatively easy" to add public restrooms to the site at a later date.
The potable water lines, which were more than a mile long, have also been removed from the site.
The overlook was first built in 1964, and is named partly after the late Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, who helped pass the federal Wilderness Act that same year. He and his wife, Bethine, worked to designate the SNRA in 1972. The nearby 2.4 million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, established in 1980, also bears the senator's name.
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
Edward Gallagher, a masonry worker with Graham Creek Construction, spreads mortar on a stone that will decorate the viewing plaza at the Bethine and Frank Church Overlook at Galena Summit. The overlook is slated to open as early as Aug. 23. Photo by David N. Seelig
