The Greater Salmon-Selway Ecosystem

Our guided Montana backpacking trips include a walk through the rugged Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness along the Montana/Idaho border, just to the southwest of Missoula, home of the University of Montana. For this trip, we meet our groups in Missoula. Although over half of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness is in Idaho, our guided hiking routes are in Montana, where the eastern third of this vast Wilderness is a land of rugged granitic peaks rising in spectacular fashion above lovely subalpine lake basins and densely forested canyons filled with huge coniferous trees.

In previous posts I discussed our guided backpacking tours in some of the great remaining wilderness complexes of the United States: the Utah Canyon country, Greater Yellowstone and Greater Gila Wilderness complexes. The Salmon-Selway country — named after its two great wilderness rivers — of central Idaho and far western Montana is the only wild-land ecosystem in the lower 48 states that compares with the Greater Yellowstone in terms of size. Unfortunately, though, there’s no national park in its wild core, so unlike the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, there’s no central game preserve where wildlife is fully protected. However, the Greater Salmon-Selway Ecosystem’s centerpiece is the huge Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness and it’s neighbor to the north, the Selway-Bitterroot, which is nearly as large. And these two huge chunks of wild country are separated only by a narrow dirt road. They are also surrounded by millions of acres of mostly still-wild national forest roadless areas, that could be added to the National Wilderness Preservation System (and that are in many cases, severely threatened by development and off-road vehicle abuse). At 2.3 million protected acres, the River of No Return is the largest Wilderness Area in the lower 48 states. Yet the furthest distance from a road that it is possible to be in the lower 48 states is not in the river of No Return Wilderness, but is in northwest Wyoming just beyond the southeast corner of Yellowstone National Park. Nonetheless, though, when you’re out in the Salmon-Selway wilds, you know you’re in big wilderness! And that includes the Selway-Bitterroot.

Looking for a guided backpack trip in the northern Rocky Mountains in wild country that few Americans are aware of other than locals?  Looking for a trek that has spectacular alpine scenery as stunning as the wilds of Glacier Park or the amazing Beartooths? Not to mention some of the most spectacular glacial-cut mountain stream canyons in the world? If so, our guided Montana backpack trip in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness is for you! We nearly always run this trek in July, it is rated “fairly strenuous”.  And it will provide an experience that merges the flora of the Rocky Mountain region with that of the lush Pacific Northwest. Come and join us in the big trees and big peaks!

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