Excerpts from the link below.
http://idahoptv.org/outdoors/shows/flyi ... nReach.cfm

The Frank Church Wilderness and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness might not exist today, were it not for the many airstrips that were grand-fathered into the original legislation. Still, the notion of aircraft flying into officially designated wilderness is difficult for many folks to accept.

Pilots know that they have to work diligently to keep those airstrips accessible to the public. "We pilots were under significant pressure to justify the privilege of using aircraft to access the public and private airports in the wilderness areas of Idaho," explained pilot Joe Corlett. "Many individuals, primarily from out-of-state, were pressuring the Forest Service to limit or cease operations in these areas."

"So the idea is that Idaho is rich in aviation history and if there weren't airplanes there would be roads to all this wilderness area, all these in-holdings back here," said Corlett. "But because of the airplane the wilderness has stayed fairly pristine; and it allows people that normally can't take two weeks off to hike 25 miles back into the wilderness to come back with an airplane, spend a few days and then leave.

"The idea is to leave without a trace. The Idaho Aviation Foundation adopted this program, and it has been going many years now.

If the goal is to help keep Idaho's 50 or so backcountry airstrips open, these efforts do seem to be working, says former Idaho Aeronautics director Bart Welch. "It is kind of a constant battle, and I spent a high percentage of my time keeping these strips open."

"We like to compare ourselves with Montana. About 40 years ago Montana had almost the same number of airstrips that Idaho has, and they have slowly allowed people to close them. They have four open to the public today, and those are somewhat controlled by how many airplanes can be there, and what times they can fly, and when they are open.

"So it's a serious thing that we have very successfully made a good program, and people believe that they're important, but it is not an easy battle and it is constant."

Send money and write a letter.
Money http://idahoaviationfoundation.org/ Idaho Aviation Foundation
Money http://www.flyidaho.org/ Idaho Aviation Association
Letter US Forest Service SALMON CHALLIS NATIONAL FOREST
PO BOX 729
HIGHWAY 93 SOUTH
SALMON ID 83467
GEORGE MATEJKO, FOREST SUPERVISOR
KEN WOTRING, WILDERNESS COORDINATOR
208-756-2215
http://www.flyidaho.org/usfs_contact.as ... 10~119~119

The http://www.recreationalaviationfoundation.org/ does a lot of good work on protecting our back-country strips as well.

"We like to compare ourselves with Montana. About 40 years ago Montana had almost the same number of airstrips that Idaho has, and they have slowly allowed people to close them. They have four open to the public today, and those are somewhat controlled by how many airplanes can be there, and what times they can fly, and when they are open.


Not entirely correct. Schafer has a limit of 550 operations per year. The others have no limits, whether yearly operations or when they are open closed. The reason Idaho has so many strips open is because of Montana. Montana went thru the wilderness process first, when we were all naive. We didn't think the strips would be closed and then they were. We had Schafer written into the language of the wilderness bill when that area was made wilderness. After seeing what happened in Montana the folks in Idaho knew to get it in writing so the strips there would stay open.

I sent them my money a few months ago and the poster with the Super Cub now hangs proudly in my office. Good deal all around.