Salmon River lodges face changes

[Times photos: Robert N. Jenkins] The Salmon River Lodge sits on a speck of private land in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. The river canyon is as much as 1 mile deep over its 151 miles through the Wilderness.

Back from the river of no return

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 29, 2001

The federal government leases the land to the lodge owners, but an environmental group has sued and appears to be winning its case.

It was going to be a chance to live in the woods, become innkeepers and a swappers of tales with river-runners, anglers, hunters, visitors from cities big and little.

Now the Watts don't know how much longer they will be able to enjoy any of those things.

The Watts, with Gail's cousin, own and operate the 24-bed River of No Return Lodge, on the Salmon River. But the Watts don't own the land on which their comfortable, rustic buildings sit.

These buildings, the largest part of the River of No Return Lodge, are likely to be demolished by federal court order as violating the Wilderness Act of 1964.

So, in the latest episode in an 11-year-old lawsuit, a federal judge has ruled that they have no right to have permanent structures at this bend in the river, named Smith Gulch.

How much longer the Watts can operate the lodge, which totals about 3,500 square feet, is uncertain. The owners of two smaller lodges are also affected by the decision, which directs the U.S. Forest Service to come to an understanding that would remove permanent structures from the half-mile-wide corridor along the federally protected Salmon.

It was the Forest Service that granted the Watts a lease when they bought the buildings from the previous owner.

Patty Bates, district ranger for this part of the Salmon River forests, said last week that the Forest Service was required to complete a new environental-impact statement. She had devised a suggested compromise solution: The permanent structures would be demolished but could be replaced with "tent cabins," essentially a solid floor but walls and ceilings made of fabric.

Each spring when the river's thaw allows boat traffic, the lodge owners could move the cabins, bedding, cooking gear, etc. into place, and then take it all back out in the early winter, before the river ices over.

Bates, speaking by telephone from her office in North Fork, Idaho, said that she was about to send her compromise to the rangers in the two other forests in which the affected lodges are located; these rangers would have to agree to the compromise. Bates estimated, "It will be a two- to three-year time period before this (plan) is enacted."

Paul Anderson, 14, of Jacksonville runs a kayak through white water on the Salmon River.

That presumes the lodge owners also agree to it. Gail Watts said in an interview late last month that he has about eight years left on his lease. When he bought the lodge, he was aware of the lawsuit, brought against the Forest Service in 1990 by an environmental group based in neighboring Montana. But Watt figured that if the Forest Service was granting him a multiyear permit, the suit was not of concern.

Indeed, a U.S. District Court had agreed with that federal agency's contention:

Because some form of the lodges operated commercially on federally owned land before the various laws were enacted to protect the pristine wilderness and the river, the existing lodges should be exempt from the new restrictions.

But U.S. Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas overturned that decision last September, stating, "Permanent lodges, particularly ones that are advertised for mini-business retreats, are not allowed in the wild Salmon River corridor."

That was an apparent reference to a single phrase in the last paragraph of the Watts' six-page brochure, which otherwise touts the lodge's convenience to hunters, anglers and rafters.

Because gas-powered generators are banned in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the Watts' lodge substitutes propane-fired devices for electrical lights and appliances. The lawn is cut with a push mower, not a gas or electric model.

Visitors can relax on the main room's comfortably worn furniture, facing the lawn sloping to the Salmon, and pass around the Watts' snapshots of a black bear standing on its hind legs to get handouts from the lodge's kitchen window.

Judge Thomas' ruling is significant to interests beyond the Watts and the owners of the other two camps cited:

River runners who opted for sleeping on the beach rather than in lodges get their first lesson in how to assemble their tents each night.

Many of the 28 licensed river outfitters advertise to potential customers that running the river's rapids does not mean the passengers have to sleep on the beach, where they might be uneasy about being exposed to the region's bears and bobcats.

Instead, the outfitters note, folks can adjourn after each day's rafting or kayaking to a place with four walls and a roof, toilets and beds.

But removing the three lodges in dispute would create too great a distance on at least one day for the rafts to travel between lodges on privately held land. That would necessitate guests having to sleep in tents, on beaches, and use portable chemical toilets.

Outfitter Dave Warren says that about 60 percent of his passengers are seniors, people willing to accept some hardships during six days rafting through massive forests. But what sells many on the wilderness experience is the thought of being cozy indoors at night.

Pending the Forest Service decision, the Watts are operating as usual this summer and plan simply to return to their farm home, about 235 miles to the southeast, just before the river ices over. "This lodge," said Betty Watt, "is all we have for the future."

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