Bruce Reichert, Host:
They have been called the American Alps, the Sawtooths.

Today, they are part of one of Idaho's most popular attractions, the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, created in 1972.

Bethine Church, Sawtooth Society:
It was beginning to be wall-to-wall subdivisions with tiny A-frames and hot dog stands and fourth acre lots. And Frank said, this just can't be. This is one of the most beautiful of the old western valleys.

Frank Church, Former Senator:
A national park there would preserve unspoiled for future generations the natural beauty and wildlife of this lofty wilderness. Perhaps we owe this much to our grandchildren.

Reichert:
Outdoor Idaho explores the SNRA as it celebrates a Sawtooth Silver Anniversary.

Truly it is a land of romance, of adventure, and of unsurpassed scenery, so wrote Robert Limbert, an early visitor to the Sawtooths.

Hi, I'm Bruce Reichert and welcome to Outdoor Idaho.

You know, at times Limbert may have been prone to exaggeration but not when it comes to his description of these jagged peaks.

The Sawtooths so named because of their distinctive shape are truly one of Idaho's and America's most scenic attractions.

It is a land born of violence.

Some 200 million years ago, floodwaters covered what is now Central Idaho.

Over time, earthquakes lifted the land and molten lava poured through the rocks formed by that ancient sea, laying the foundation for today's mountains.

But it was ice that made these mountains unique.

Two million years ago, immense glaciers covered the land, scouring the ground and sculpting the ancient rock.

As the ice melted, the sheer peaks and broad valleys of the Sawtooths were revealed and man first appeared, seeking refuge in rock shelters like this one near Redfish Lake.

Pat Bower, Archeologist:
It was probably a seasonal camp. People coming to gather plants, hunt deer and elk, bighorn sheep. And very likely the salmon was the big draw.

Reichert:
Thousands of years later, fur trapper Alexander Ross first glimpsed the Sawtooths from Galena Summit.

In 1824, Ross wrote, "The view we enjoyed repaid us well for our troubles."

Later, men came seeking gold and silver, creating mining towns like Obsidian, Vienna, and Sawtooth City.

Today, prospectors of a different sort gather in Sawtooth City.

Archeologists sift through broken bottles, cans, and discarded junk searching for clues from an earlier time.

Donna Turnipseed, Archeologist:
The cans allow us to find out diets, because of the construction techniques, we can figure out possibly if a peach was in there versus an oyster or a pea. And then the medicine bottles allow us to find out if the people were injured, if they had a lot of ailments up here.

And what we're doing is surface surveying to record and recapture all the information available about the lifestyles of the people who lived here during the 1880's and early 1890's.

Reichert:
And, some of these early residents found more than gold, they found a landscape worth protecting.

In 1883, one suggested preserving the area.

Later, Idaho women's clubs took up the preservation issue.

In 1911, they urged Congress to create a national park in the Sawtooths.

About that same time, a young man from Nebraska settled in Boise.

Nearby, Robert Limbert found a land full of opportunity and beauty, which he set out to capture on film.

Of the Sawtooths, Limbert wrote, "It is a vast region of inviting mystery as primitive and unsullied by the hand of man as it was when our pilgrim forefathers landed at Plymouth Rock."

Limbert wrote numerous articles about the Sawtooths, describing the beauty found in what he called the American Alps.

And, he described the power of the landscape to change a man, recalling a trip with an Army sergeant he called the "most blasphemous man in the west."

After scaling a peak, the two sat back to enjoy the view when the irreverent sergeant turned to Limbert saying, "There is a God, ain't they?"

And Limbert saw in the Sawtooths opportunity.

In 1927, he built Redfish Lake Lodge, hoping to attract Eastern "dudes" to Idaho.

Margaret Lawrence, Limbert's Daughter:
My father had an idea that anyone that was going to work for him, they should be able to play a harmonica or an accordion. And everyone used to gather around the campfire. They'd come from the point and everyone loved the campfires at night. That to me was my favorite memory.

Reichert:
Not too many years later, the Sawtooths lured another young man with a camera, Ernie Day.

Ernie Day, Photographer:
For a long time I didn't know there was anyplace other than McCall and Payette Lakes and that area. But when I married Lois, and we took our honeymoon at the Clark Miller Dude Ranch and that opened up a whole new area. Boy I tell you, I was in love with that. And then the White Clouds a little bit later.

Reichert:
Day's photos captivated another young Idaho resident, Senator Frank Church.

B. Church:
We thought we were going to have a little vacation in the mountains and we drove up here and suddenly, we look over this wonderful valley and it was beginning to be wall-to-wall subdivisions with tiny A-frames and hot dog stands and fourth acre lots. And Frank said this just can't be. This is one of the most beautiful of the old western valleys.

Reichert:
In 1960, Church revived the proposal to create a national park.

F. Church:
A national park there would preserve unspoiled for future generations, the natural beauty and wildlife of this lofty wilderness. Perhaps we owe this much to our grandchildren.

Reichert:
Eventually, Church dropped the park idea in favor of a less restrictive national recreation area.

Jim McClure, Former Senator:
The people of Idaho do not want a national park here. We like people to visit but we don't want too many of them. And a national park would have brought too many. But the other side of that was is a national park would also cut out all the hunting opportunities in this area. And Idahoans were then and still are very jealous about protecting their rights to hunt.

Reichert:
Still, the proposal languished until the late 60's when plans were announced for a molybdenum mine at Castle Peak.

Day:
One of the worst things would have been a road right up there to the base of Castle Peak. And then the projection was for a humongous open pit mine right there. And oh, that would have been murder.

Reichert:
Congress intervened and extended the boundaries of the proposed recreation area to include Castle Peak.

F. Church:
From the beginning, the question we've faced is not really been one of to mine or not to mine, because under our constitution once a valid mining claim is established you can't pass a law afterwards and make it retroactive, can we?

Len Jordan, Former Senator:
No, we can't turn the calendar back.

F. Church:
So what we've really been faced with is how we could regulate this mining activity in a way that will do the least possible damage to the scenic values of this area.

Reichert:
Finally, in 1972, Congress created the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, setting aside some 750,000 acres to protect the "natural, scenic, historic, pastoral, fish and wildlife values" of this unique landscape.

B. Church:
You look up to those magnificent Sawtooths, and it's just almost like God made it. And like the first people who came here ranched it. And that's a wonderful blessing and our children will always have that to see just like that.

Reichert:
Visit the Sawtooths, and you'll see something you won't find many places, large, working ranches.

Just before the SNRA was created, many of these ranches were being split up, subdivided and developed.

Paul Reis, SNRA:
Folks describe how there were ads that you could get your little piece of the Sawtooths for a few hundred dollars and pay 10 dollars a month in order to get a parcel of ground to put a small cabin on, where folks could come and spend the weekend or a place where you could park a trailer. It would have significantly changed the character of the valley.

Instead of being able to look at great peaks, you would look at the backsides of great buildings that are situated to look at the great peaks.

Orval Hansen, Former Representative:
We stopped the threat. We would have lost forever one of the most beautiful places on earth. I think the development would have gone forward without any particular plan. And the value for everyone would be depreciated.

Reichert:
But, that didn't happen.

The government spent millions of dollars to buy scenic easements on much of the private property in the area.

The number, size, and style of buildings is limited on 90 percent of the private land in the SNRA.

Reis:
Most folks come through here and think this place is spectacular without ever really realizing that there is a reason it still looks spectacular. It's not an accident. It's not necessarily a truly natural condition. It involves some intervention from their government through the purchase of those scenic easements that retain those views today.

Reichert:
Over the years, however, the money dwindled and scenic easements haven't been purchased on more than 2500 acres of private property.

Developer Dan Strand owns some of that property. He bought it specifically to build a ten-home subdivision. Before the subdivision, the property was appraised at just under $200,000. Now, Custer County says it's worth six times that.

Dan Strand, Developer:
The county is not destitute but it sure doesn't have the income off property because we're 96% federally owned or a little more than 96% federally owned. And in the SNRA we're actually about 99.7% federally owned. So, this type of development, especially here where prices where land values are so high is extremely valuable to Custer County.

And what has happened because of scenic easements since the 70's, there's less and less available land. Of course anytime you've got less and less available land in a area like this, the price automatically goes up.

Reichert:
As prices have gone up, the new homes have gotten larger.

And, as more homes appear in the area, Reis fears something will be lost.

Reis:
Aspen recently passed what they call a monster home ordinance to deal with that. Ski areas in general are concerned about being living ghost towns where there are all these homes that are barely occupied a few weekends a year.

And we're starting to see those same types of home and those same symptoms now come into the valley here.

Strand:
I don't think a small thing like this changes the character of the area because for one thing, you're talking ten home sites in an area that's 786,000 acres. If you subdivided everything that was available out here, it's not going to change the character of the area at all. As a matter of fact, the people that live here are so few compared to the tourists that come here, that it can't affect the character anyway.

Reichert:
But there are some who think the unique character of the area will change. So, they want to help raise money to purchase more scenic easements.

Cecil Andrus, Sawtooth Society:
You'll see condominiums and apartment houses and dwellings and things that will clutter up this beautiful landscape. You know, it's difficult to look at the Sawtooths, right here behind me, if you're looking through the peaks of a lot of houses and condos.

B. Church:
You know there is that touch, I suppose, of greed in all of us when you look out there and say, oh boy, look at this wonderful place. Imagine a big condominium or two here and there, and that's what would ruin it.

Reichert:
Robert Limbert once thought Idaho's Craters of the Moon, with its stark landscapes, would be the state's biggest draw.

But he soon realized that the Sawtooth region was destined, as he wrote, to become the playground of the nation.

Cecelia Carlson, Tourist:
It's absolutely wonderful here. And the lakes. It has beautiful lakes. For everything, you can fish, and water ski, and hike and there's all kinds of things that you can do.

Robert Gould, Tourist:
It's just absolutely stunning and beautiful. I don't want to actually tell you more about it we don't want other people to come up here.

Reichert:
But the SNRA has been discovered.

About one and a half million people visit the area each year. And Limbert's untouched playground is beginning to show signs of wearing out.

Carol Cole, SNRA:
I think the Sawtooths in the past ten years or even maybe longer than that, the use has been going up so dramatically that there are certain areas that are showing the impacts.

If you talk with back country crews, they'll talk about, you know, the mountains of trash and garbage that they haul out from there.

If you look in a lot of the even developed campgrounds, you look around the bases of the trees and the roots are trampled and exposed. And there is a concern about, you know, losing the trees in campgrounds possibly.

Reichert:
The problem is two fold.

Reis:
Over the last five years we've seen our budget basically cut in half while we've seen our visitation go up about 30 percent. So we've really had to cut back on services, really cut back on opportunities.

We've had to close Redfish Visitor Center last year. We're barely doing any trail maintenance. My permanent staff is about half of what it used to be and our summer staff is a fraction of what it used to be. So we're barely keeping the doors open.

John Freemuth, Boise State University Professor:
One of the thing Americans have to understand is that if they're sending a message that government is too big and yet they want all these services through the public lands, a nice visitors center at the Sawtooths, well it's got to be paid for. And if they are not willing or they cannot support general appropriations for that, then users fees becomes an alternative for that.

Reichert:
But now there's a new way to raise revenue.

The forest service can now collect recreation fees.

Visitors now have to plunk down two dollars a day or five dollars a year.

To play, you now have to pay.

Opponents of the new fees argue that taxpayers are already supporting the Forest Service.

Reis:
As the country struggles to eliminate the deficit and balance the federal budget, we're one of those few areas where there is any discretion. And people from all over the country through their taxes help pay for this recreation area as well as all their national forests and national parks but it simply isn't enough anymore.

The theory is, the theory we're testing is that folks who use the area and enjoy it and love it will contribute a little bit more to its care and its upkeep.

Tom Thurber, Lower Stanley Resident:
I think the recreation fee is a good idea if they spend the money locally like they say they are going to.

Reis:
One hundred percent of the fees will stay here in the recreation area where the purchasers of those passes tell us they want them spent. And what we've heard at the open houses we had were that folks were real concerned about trail maintenance so we're expecting a lot of the money to go there.

We'll spend it where people want it to go. It's their money, it's their recreation area. We can do that.

Reichert:
In the first few months of the program, only about 20 percent of visitors had actually bought the users passes.

Still, it was enough money to clean up some additional trails.

But because the trails had been neglected for so long, the job to clear them was much harder.

Jay Dorr, Trail Crew:
There were trails we worked on this year that we hadn't been on for four or five years just because we were short on crew. And it took a long time. We were doing a couple hundred yards some days instead of three or four miles.

With the extra people, we probably got about twice as much as we would have because we were able to split into two crews and cover a lot more country.

Reis:
The way most folks feel is kind of the way I feel. I'm not real excited about having to paying to come into the SNRA, but we have few choices and if we're going to continue to be able to use and enjoy this place, we need to take care of it. And this is the best way to do that right now.

Reichert:
As the SNRA celebrates its silver anniversary, managers face difficult decisions on other issues as well.

Few are more challenging than protecting the endangered salmon.

When Robert Limbert explored the area, he wrote of the excitement of salmon fishing, describing efforts to catch "big husky fellows" weighing from 25 to 40 pounds.

Lawrence:
You could walk on the backs, there were so many of them. That's what he used to say. And of course, that was when he first went up there. But it's changed.

Reichert:
Today, Limbert's "husky fellows" are nearly extinct. And efforts to save the salmon run headlong into a favorite pastime in the SNRA.

Every day, dozens of people take to the water, delighting in the thrill of crashing through waves on the Salmon River.

In late summer, those thrills are cut short when rafting is restricted on certain river stretches to protect the salmon.

Reis:
We've got salmon who have traveled 900 miles from the ocean. They've made it through all the dams finally to get up here and they're at the very end of their lives. They need all the energy that they have left to spawn successfully.

And we know that as boats go by or as they get disturbed, they leave their redds and they consume energy. The concern is with all the activity that we have on the river these days, with salmon leaving the redds so often that they'll run out of energy before they are able to finish spawning. And that we'll lose thousands and thousands of eggs and thousands and thousands of salmon that are about to go extinct.

Reichert:
Once the salmon begin to spawn, rafters leave their boats to portage around Indian Riffles.

While the boats are loaded on trailers, the guests head out on foot.

Jeff Dodds, Guide:
This used to be, if you guys know, the nation's largest salmon spawning bed. Close to 12,000 salmon, or even more than that, used to spawn. They're really picky about where they spawn. They want rocks about the same size. They don't want a lot of sediment. The reason is they want to make sure the eggs are always oxygenated. They don't want to, you know, suffocate the eggs.

So not much longer, about three months, the juvenile salmon hatch and they're free in the spring to float down to the ocean.

When you're sitting there and we're describing a lot about the dams, and showing the effect, here we are, you're going around the nation's largest salmon spawning bed and look, I mean you've got 12 fish coming back this year, which thousands and thousands of fish used to occupy this one spot that's only a half mile long, guests are like "wow" this is amazing. Look at what's going on. Look at what the dams have done all the way downstream.

Reichert:
After a short walk, the guests are back on the river, a little more knowledgeable about the salmon.

Dodds:
I think something we as guides don't really want to do but if it helps the salmon out, that's a good process to bring those numbers hopefully back in larger quantities. And we use it as an educational tool. Yeah, it comes out to be a real positive experience I think for everybody.

Reichert:
It would take a hiker months to see all of the Sawtooths. But from the air, the Sawtooths slowly reveal themselves.

As each ridge drops away, another wonder is unveiled.

It's that sense of discovery that keeps pilot Galen Hanselman coming back.

Galen Hanselman, Pilot:
We've flown all over the western United States and into Mexico and some into Canada and the Sawtooths, we found to be probably the most beautiful mountains we've ever seen anywhere.

I never get tired of flying up there. It's just absolutely gorgeous.

It gives you a different perspective of what those mountains are really all about. You can drive up the highway here in the Sawtooth Valley and you look off to the West and it's an incredible scene of this backdrop of huge rocky mountains. And it's an incredible sight.

But what most people never get to experience is that those mountains don't just stop right there. And it's a two dimensional view you get from the highway. And from the air, it's a three dimensional view and it's absolutely incredible. Those mountains just seem to go on and on and on. And until you actually fly that country and get a three dimensional perspective of that country you don't really have a grasp and an appreciation of what that country really is about.

I just enjoy taking the whole thing in. It's more like a religious experience than anything to be able to fly through there and always being surprised by what's around the next mountain and this beautiful view.

I never get tired of it.

It's an incredible place and we're so fortunate to have that here.

Reichert:
"In places like this, one may sit entranced for hours at a time."

"The range upon range of towering, jagged, snowcapped mountain peaks seem to beckon and lure you ever onward."

That's as true today as it was when Robert Limbert wrote it years ago.

In fact, it was the rare beauty of the Sawtooths that prompted Congress to create the SNRA in 1972. And now, thanks to that action, the Sawtooths will continue to inspire future generations when the SNRA celebrates its Golden Anniversary in the 21st Century.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

close caption transcription by Kelly Roberts