Travis Bullock, owner of Mile High Outfitters, shares how decades of wildfire damage and restrictive wilderness policies have contributed to the deterioration of Idaho’s Frank Church Wilderness trail system and explains why recent policy changes may finally help restore safe public access.
Highlights:
- Decades of wildfire damage and restrictions on chainsaw use have caused many trails in the Frank Church to become dangerous, overgrown, or completely impassable.
- Traditional crosscut saws are far less efficient and more labor-intensive than chainsaws, making large-scale trail maintenance difficult in Idaho’s rugged backcountry terrain.
- A new 2026 Salmon-Challis National Forest order allowing permitted outfitters to use chainsaws for trail clearing could help restore safer public access and reduce years of maintenance backlog.
When I was a kid in the 70’s, we rode horses through the Frank Church Wilderness (then called the Idaho Primitive Area) for ten days each summer. In all that time, I only remember seeing one tree across the trail. It was on a sidehill. My dad led the horses around it, but Mom was upset. She was afraid the horses would fall. It makes me laugh now to think how much our trails have deteriorated. If she had to ride those same trails today, Mom wouldn’t be having any fun. In fact, a lot of those trails don’t even exist anymore because the forest service has let them deteriorate to the point where they are non-existent.
So why have trails deteriorated in the last 40 years? Two very simple reasons- forest fires and lack of chainsaws.
Before the Frank Church was wilderness, we were allowed the use of chainsaws to clear trees. The forest service recently did a study on how fast a chainsaw works compared to a traditional crosscut saw. On bigger trees, the gas chainsaw worked up to 16 times faster. Electric saws were a little slower. Electric saws have come a long way, but a gallon of gas still goes much further than the current electric technology.
The amount of human energy used with a crosscut saw is huge compared to the chainsaw. A big disadvantage of a crosscut saw is that it takes two people. Most of Idaho is steep and rugged, and when a tree falls, it very seldom falls on a flat spot, which means that if you are on a two-man crosscut saw, somebody must work from the downhill side of the fallen tree. This can be dangerous because when the tree finally releases, it may start rolling. It sucks to be the downhill guy.
Sharpening a crosscut saw is not a simple project. Throughout the country, there are very few good saw sharpeners, and it is becoming a lost trade. I never acquired the skill to sharpen crosscuts because each one is different, and getting the right bevel on each tooth is difficult. They don’t make a jig for a crosscut that works for all saws. Chainsaws, on the other hand, are very simple to sharpen. It takes about 10-15 minutes to touch up a chain, but more importantly, when in the field, it is just easier to carry extra chains. It only takes about 5 minutes to switch a chain out. If you are careful not to run your chain into the dirt, you can go all day on 2 or 3 chains.
A leading reason trails have deteriorated is forest fires in recent decades. The forest service started implementing “Smokey the Bear” about 100 years ago. “Remember, only you can prevent forest fires”. Does everyone remember that saying while watching the little cartoon animals running from fire in the woods? At the time, logging was a huge business, and burnt trees did not hold the value of live trees. The forest service was encouraged to put out all fires. After decades of fuel build-up, when a fire did start, it burned violently and was hostile. The days of mosaic burns, where natural fires burnt lightly and sporadically, were traded for fires that scorched the earth. They burned hot from a huge, unnatural buildup of fuel. Al Gore and Barack Obama would tell you it is global warming, but common sense says more wood equals a hotter fire.
I remember as a kid watching two large fires from a distance in 1979. They were called Ship Island and Mortar Creek. If memory serves correctly, two firefighters were killed on the Ship Island fire. Looking back, I question why we even tried to fight those fires. We saved nothing because the lost timber was sparse and low-grade. The steep terrain would never allow roads to transport the logs. We spent lots of money, and we risked/lost lives, but back then, fire was evil. You weren’t Smokey the Bear’s friend if you allowed forest fires to happen. As I said, those two large fires were in 1979. The next year, the Idaho Primitive Area became the Frank Church Wilderness, and fires have happened in the Frank almost every year since then.
When a fire goes through an area, many times it clears the area of downed trees and undergrowth. The real trouble happens starting about year 5-6 after a fire. The problem is the green trees that die in the fire and are left standing. If the bark at the base of the standing, dead tree does not split and peel off, it will hold moisture. This creates rot, and during a windstorm, this tree will fall. That is why windstorms are so dangerous in burns, especially in years 5-15 after the fire. If the bark splits and allows the moisture to escape, that tree may stand for 50-100 years.
As an outfitter, a dangerous part of our job is accessing trails that are not maintained. In the forty years I have been guiding, I have only had two clients break bones. Both were due to getting stock around trees across trails.
Chainsaws are listed in the Frank Church Wilderness plan as a minimum tool to accomplish trail work, and those decisions can be made at the district level. In other words, the same district ranger who signs the permit for Mile High Outfitters can sign an order allowing the use of chainsaws to clear trails in the Frank. The problem? Chainsaw use is so unpopular in the wilderness that rangers would rather the trails go uncleared than risk political suicide.
Amongst wilderness extremists, chainsaws are not tolerated, and even though our country is pushing 40 trillion in debt, they believe the answer is more funding to hire more people to run crosscut saws. The irony? The number of people it would take with crosscut saws to clear the trails in the Frank each summer would be huge, and the whole point of getting into the wilderness is to get away from people. Make no mistake, in the 46 years since the Frank became wilderness, there has never been a year when the forest service cleared every trail like they are mandated to do in the wilderness plan.
Recently, the Trump administration has appointed can-do people in key positions. They have the drive and determination to cut through red tape and get the work accomplished to keep recreating public safe. Along with trying to keep Iran from blowing up the world with a nuclear bomb and other minor events, Trump took time to review our trail systems in Idaho and implement common sense strategy. Sadly, organizations such as Wilderness Watch may be using chainsaws as a rallying cry for membership drives and fundraising, and may use the court system to curtail this positive forward momentum.
On May 13, 2026, the Salmon/Challis Forest under the Trump administration signed an order allowing licensed and permitted outfitters to clear trails with a chainsaw for a three-year period to reduce the backlog of uncleared trails. Even though Mile High Outfitters has very little wilderness in our operating area on the Salmon/Challis, we chose to help and cleared some trail in the neighboring outfitter’s area in the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. Sam, Clay, and I cleared about 400-500 trees on the first day. They ranged from green saplings encroaching on the passage to some trees 3 feet in diameter, lying lengthwise in the trail. Unfortunately, as we started down the trail the second day, high water covered the trail, and we could get no further.
I want to thank all involved in allowing permitted outfitters on the Salmon/Challis to keep these trails clear and embracing this no-nonsense approach to keep the public safe. Your leadership may not be politically correct, but it is a breath of fresh air that has been overdue for 46 years. We in the outfitting industry will continue to clear trail to the best of our financial ability.