A Love Note to the Salmon River Mountains

Becca Aceto manages communications and outreach for the Idaho Wildlife Federation. She also serves as an Idaho ambassador for Artemis Sportswomen.

Trace your finger over a map of Idaho, north to south, and eventually you’ll graze over the Salmon River.

She runs cold, clear, and undammed for her 425-mile entirety, carving out the edge of the Salmon River Mountains. When I close my eyes and think of home, this river and these mountains are painted in my mind.

Like many a love story, this one was not blessed with immediate affection. My midwestern roots struggled to take hold in the dry earth of central Idaho. The valleys were so wide, the air so thin, the nights so cold and quiet. I felt an outsider peering into another world. But instead of turning to go, carrying on until I found somewhere easier to love, I stayed.

I got to know my neighbors — a loquacious pair of sandhill cranes who came and went with the seasons and a timid herd of elk. I sat with songbirds in the vast lodgepole forests. I found myself on windswept ridgelines at dawn, watching the cold morning sun brighten the high east-facing rock while willing dexterity from my fingers. I hunkered down beneath the boughs of a Douglas fir during early autumn snow squalls, resurfacing to a world of stories told through tracks. I walked gently and quietly. I watched, smelled, listened. And eventually I purchased a rifle, finding another way to carve out a small place for myself in the great hum of this land.

I did not intend to become a hunter. But like many a person on many a journey, there came a turning point and I chose the path that led to more: more questions, more connection, more love, and more understanding of the creatures I shared my home with.

No mule deer, no elk, and no ridge-dwelling blue grouse will ever ask to be hunted. But they are woven into the fabric of these mountains that I love, and love, just like life, is complicated.

So, for as long as I walk my body into these Salmon River Mountains with a gun in my hands, it is love that will guide me.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

So many of our country’s parks and public lands written about in these love notes would not exist but for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). This important conservation program was permanently funded when Congress passed the Great American Outdoors Act earlier this summer. You can learn more about the Land and Water Conservation Fund here.

Would you like to write about public lands that you cherish? Please email Mary Jo Brooks at brooksm@nwf.org for guidelines.