 | Monday, May 20, 2013 |
Sunrise on the Chinese Wall, a 1,000-feet high, 22-mile long escarpment along the Continental Divide, captured with a digital camera by Spokane hiker Rick Diffley on Day 3 of a six-day, 70-mile backpacking trip through the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana. Photo by Rick Diffley
Wilderness:
By the Numbers
1924
Year the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico, championed by ecologist Aldo Leopold, was designated as America’s first official wilderness area
8
Number of years the Wilderness Act was debated before passage in 1964
106 million
Acres designated as wilderness in 662 units in 44 states
57.5 million
Acres designated as wilderness in Alaska
4.3 million
Acres of wilderness in Washington
4 million
Acres of wilderness in Idaho
9.08 million
Acres in the largest wilderness: Wrangell-St. Elias, Alaska
5
Acres in the smallest wilderness: Pelican Island, Florida
4.7
Percent of U.S. protected as wilderness
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Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
The U.S. population has increased by 100 million people in the past 40 years and the rate of rural land lost to development through the 1990s was about 2.2 million acres a year.
Meanwhile, nothing much has changed in many of America’s finest wilderness areas except what Mother Nature has done with her own ways.
That was the intent in 1964, when Congress approved the Wilderness Act and established the National Wilderness Preservation System.
The legislation signed by President Lyndon Johnson created a category for protecting special natural areas "...where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."
In this series the Outdoors & Travel section will explore wilderness areas, from the politics and issues to the pure wide-eyed adventure that lures people to them.
(Full story)
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 Rivers are the blood vessels of a wilderness area. They are the life lines that link the ecosystem and provide the arterials for fish, wildlife and adventurers alike. None is more revered than the namesake of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, an area that was among the first no-brainer listings for protection under both the Wilderness Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
>> Air enthusiasts can still drop in on wilderness
John Heilprin / Associated Press
Forty years and 106 million acres after Congress decided the wilderness should not be spoiled by people, the law is such an icon that skeptics dare only try to slow its consequences.
>> Ojito Mesa could become next refuge for lovers of outdoors
>>
Too little or too much
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska looms around the top of many lists. It's the nation's largest refuge and it encompasses the second-largest official wilderness.It's home to some of the country's rarest creatures, such as muskoxen, and holds the highest density of polar bear land dens along the Alaska coast
>> ANWR Timeline
>> Living the life of the caribou
>> Exhibit changes create dispute
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 Wilderness is argued to be either the ultimate protection for America's choice wild lands or a drastic lock-up that excludes the use of motorized equipment, not just for recreation but also for management. The gridlock of debate has left millions of acres of federal land in limbo since the Wilderness Act was approved in 1964.
>> Colorado sand dunes named 56th national park
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 From a distance, much of it looks like wasteland. Up close, this bulge in the sea of Oregon sagebrush desert reveals itself as one of the most diverse and productive wildlife areas in Oregon. Steens Mounain crawls with critters such as elk and antelope, bighorn sheep and plant species found nowhere else.
Part 6
Outdoor Adventures
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 Wildernes has a way of bringing out the adventurer, the philosopher, the artist, the humorist and the hero in those willing to explore its uncertainty, as you can see in the following submissions from readers who ersponded to our request for vignettes of their outback experiences.
>> Rising to the occasion
>> Reasoned retreat
>> Thinking short, hiking long
>> Lucky girl
>> From pristine sources
>> A wild rush
>> Singing a different tune
>> Because it's there
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 Nothing takes modern big-game hunters to their roots more quickly and efficiently than a wilderness-bound pack string. Wall tents, wood stoves and saddle sores are part of a Western autumn tradition that dates back to the mountain men, although nowadays a wilderness hunt is a luxury in more ways than one.
>> 'The Bob' is a hunter's paradise
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 While lakes are attractions in many of the nation's 662 official wilderness areas, they are the essence of the million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota.
>> Paddlers rule in wild waters
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 The beaches were an afterthought. Olympic National Park was established in 1938 primarily to protect the declining herds of Roosevelt elk and the old-growth forests that sustained them.
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 Throughout history, people have been simultaneously awestruck and infatuated with towering peaks — pinnacles that come closer than other natural objects to the heavens. Borah Peak on Mount Borah is Idaho's offering to the gods..
>> Idaho's highest point low on wilderness priority
>> Mountains of fun
Rich Landers / Outdoors editor
 Washington's last best wild steelhead runs spawn in waters protected within the wilderness of Olympic National Park. Perhaps the healthiest steelhead runs in the world originate in streams that flow out of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in southwestern Oregon.
>> Ruling murky on water rights
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