Grandmother Mountain Roadless Area

Grandmother Mountain Roadless Area

Size: 30,000 acres approximately

This area is a popular high elevation recreation area, especially for primitive winter recreation and huckleberry picking. However, ORV use creates damage along the trails and meadows, especially around Widow Mountain.

Much of the Grandmother Mountain Roadless area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This includes the headwaters of the Little North Fork Clearwater. A portion of this roadless area is protected as an Research Natural Area. Higher elevation lakes and unique wetlands make this area and the nearby Pinchot Butte Roadless Area (separated by one Forest road) incredibly valuable ecologically.

Several trails in this area were recently made off limits to 4 wheel ORV use.

Spectacular views can be seen from all of the peaks in this area, as it makes up part of the ridge dividing the Clearwater from the St. Joe River drainage.

Mallard Larkins Roadless Area

Mallard Larkins Roadless Area

Size: 260,000 acres

The Mallard Larkins is biologically diverse, including low elevation disjunct coastal rainforest communities. In the high country, extensive lodgepole pine and mountain hemlock forests mingle with subalpine meadows, high mountain lakes, and craggy peaks.

Impressive pockets of old growth western red cedar, western hemlock, and inland western white pine, some quite massive, remain in the lower elevations. The rare inland coastal rainforest habitat is well developed in Isabella Creek.

Here, large old growth red alder, pacific yew, and many different ferns thrive among the arboreal giants. Thirty-eight mountain lakes are large enough to be named, with Heart Lake the largest at 35 acres.