Valley County is now home to another 94 acres of wilderness.
A formerly private 94-acre parcel surrounded by the Frank Church — River of No Return Wilderness is now federally protected wilderness following a series of deals brokered by the Payette Land Trust.
“The property is now fully accessible to the public, while bolstering the integrity of the wilderness and ensuring the protection of water quality in Annie Creek, which has connections to Monumental Creek and salmon habitat,” PLT Executive Director Craig Utter said.
The newly minted wilderness, known by the land trust as the Annie Creek property, is now within the Payette National Forest, one of five national forests that includes portions of The Frank’s 2.3 million acres. It also becomes part of Valley County’s 2.15-million-acre public land inventory.
The land is about 40 miles east of McCall near Yellow Pine. It is just outside the eastern boundary of Perpetua Resources’ Stibnite mine and about 3 miles from the location of an on-site housing facility planned by the company. It is about 1,500 feet off Thunder Mountain Road, also known as Forest Road 640, which can only be accessed through the mine site.
The property is “surrounded by steep, forested terrain” but features “gentler slopes, creeks, and wetlands.” Flat building sites that were once used by early 1900s miners and nearby road access made the land “particularly vulnerable to development,” according to the land trust.
Now, any development on the land would require federal lawmakers to override its wilderness designation.
‘Win-win’ deal
Utter said the land trust helped broker the deal after it was approached by a private foundation seeking help finding a piece of property to designate as wilderness in honor of a family member.
The trust identified the Annie Creek property, which was already for sale, and then enlisted the help of the Wilderness Land Trust of Helena, Montana, for its experience coordinating deals between private landowners and the Forest Service. The land trust then bought the private property in August 2024 before recently selling the 94 acres to the Payette for designation as wilderness.
“Idaho is changing at a rapid rate which requires voluntary partnerships between private landowners, organizations and foundations to conserve Idaho’s natural beauty,” he said. “It was a win-win for a lot of folks.”
Utter declined to disclose the purchase and sales price of the Annie Creek property, citing the privacy of the private parties involved in the deal.
Buying inholdings of private land within wilderness areas is the main mission of the Wilderness Land Trust. In the last 33 years, the trust has converted 614 properties totaling more than 59,000 acres across the west into wilderness, removing all private inholdings from 18 different wilderness areas.
The River of No Return Wilderness, as it was known when it was established in 1980, still includes 42 private land holdings totaling 1,200 acres, according to the trust.
Utter said the acquisition by the Forest Service also aligned with the Payette Forest’s objectives, although the agency could not be reached for comment due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
Wilderness background
In 1984, the wilderness was re-named to honor Idaho Sen. Frank Church, who helped create The Frank itself as well as the federal law that made it possible. The name change was official just weeks before Church’s death.
Church was the floor sponsor for the Wilderness Act of 1964, which established wilderness areas and defined them as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
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Besides protecting wilderness areas from development, the law also aims to preserve “wilderness character” by keeping all activity in wilderness areas primitive. That means wheeled vehicles of any kind, including bicycles, and power tools are not allowed within the wilderness.
The Frank remains the largest contiguous wilderness in the continental United States, contains 180 miles of the Salmon River, and is home to 280 wildlife species. It is among 803 federally protected wilderness areas spanning 111 million acres.
