The Place

In a state as wild as Idaho, even designated Wilderness areas can be overlooked. The Gospel-Hump Wilderness is the overlooked middle child of Idaho wildernesses, located just to the west of the (much more well-known) Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return. The Gospel Hump lies on the divide between the Clearwater and Salmon drainages, roughly 20 miles southeast of Grangeville, Idaho.

Overlooked doesn't mean undeserving. This 200,000-acre wilderness area embodies the rugged beauty of two very different ecoregions in Idaho.

The northern portion of the Wilderness is moist and heavily forested country, green with grand fir, Englemann spruce, and Pacific yew in its wetter locations. Numerous fresh-water streams and sub-alpine lakes flow south into the South Fork Clearwater, including high-quality fisheries like John's Creek.

The southern portion is steep and sparsely vegetated, particularly along the Salmon River Breaks. This is dry country, blazing hot in summer and bitingly cold in winter. The often treeless hillsides support bunchgrass, prickly pear cactus, and curl-leaf mountain mahogany. High winds, dry conditions, and frequent summer storms make this region subject to relatively frequent fires that ascend the canyon walls with astonishing speed.

The northern and southern areas are separated by a rugged, glaciated divide, which contains the peaks for which the Wilderness is named, Gospel Hill and Buffalo Hump.

History

The United States Congress designated the Gospel-Hump Wilderness in 1978 under the Endangered American Wilderness Act. The Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness is located to the northeast of this area, and the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness lies just to its south and east. The entire southern boundary of the Gospel-Hump Wilderness runs along the Wild & Scenic Main Fork of the Salmon River. The area has a total of 205,796 acres and is managed by the Forest Service.

Elevations range from 1,970 feet at the Wind River pack bridge on the Salmon River to 8,940 feet at the summit of Buffalo Hump. Weather patterns vary by location and can be quite unpredictable. Temperatures can soar to 100 degrees Fahrenheit along the Salmon River, while rain and snow often falls in the high country. Moose, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, wolves, and anadromous fish all make their home here. Wild steelhead and Chinook salmon still make their annual migration up the Main Fork of the Salmon.

Seasonal roads of fair-to-poor quality surround the Wilderness, and are often impassable due to late snows. Some of these roads offer access to trails that lead from the Salmon River Breaks into the high country, which many hikers would classify as very challenging. Some choose to head southeast from Grangeville, while others access the area from the South Fork of the Clearwater drainage to the north.

Management

There is much room for improvement in the stewardship of the Gospel-Hump Wilderness. Unlike in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, domestic livestock graze the Gospel-Hump Wilderness. If the Forest Service retired these grazing allotments as soon as possible, further damage to soils and riparian areas could be prevented. Motorized recreation has also been reported inside the Wilderness, a blatant and unacceptable violation of the Wilderness Act of 1964. A robust wilderness-character monitoring effort could substantiate and quantify impacts from grazing and off-road vehicle and snowmobile trespass so actions could be taken to address those impacts. Jet-boating activity on the Main Fork of the Salmon River also disrupts what would otherwise be a profoundly primitive experience.

The Gospel-Hump Wilderness is contiguous to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. If the area were managed as a single unit, as is done with the Bob Marshall Complex in Montana, adequate funding and attention for this Wilderness area could be better ensured.

Wildlife

The northern portion of the wilderness (and the roadless areas adjacent to it) are ideal habitat for the fisher, a large relative of the weasel. Fishers are rare in the Clearwater due to logging and trapping, and could warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Adjacent Wildlands