Pave it, or save it?

The sun slowly peeks from behind 8,000-foot peaks, flooding the dark timber with warming rays. Trout rise for mayflies on the lake's placid surface as the air warms and steam rises off the water.


This is absolute solitude.


This is wilderness.

Legally, it endured along maze of bureaucracy and red tape to reach this level of protection. New legislation moving through Congress could strip lands currently trapped in the middle of that maze.

House Resolution 1581, the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act of 2011, would open 43 million acres of federally protected public lands to multi-use management, including motorized vehicle recreation and natural resource development. The lands affected aren't currently wilderness, but are areas conservationists hope someday will be.

They're areas that have sat in limbo for decades, managed as de facto wilderness areas, but without the lifelong guarantee of protection. Such places cover about 5.5 million acres in Montana –– 6 percent of the state's total landmass — 25,000 times larger than the University of Montana campus.

Stretching between Rock Creek and the Bitterroot Valley, the Sapphire Wilderness Study area 50 miles from Missoula is one place that would be affected by the legislation.

The Sapphire covers 120,000 acres with healthy fisheries for threatened Bull Trout and summer range for elk herds.  It's the proximity of areas like the Sapphire that makes some students and others at the University worried about HR 1581, even in these early stages.

These lands are not places with maintained trail systems that draw light hikers and horseback riders. They're hard to get to, rugged and remote, and they often border lands where mining and logging are permitted. Hunters, backpackers and other adventurous explorers are the few who tread here. Many opposing this bill hope these areas will one day become federally mandated wilderness. Most supporters are hunters who have an intimate understanding of the backcountry, or loggers whose livelihoods depend on the health of forests and access to them.

Both want to use these lands, but can't agree on how.

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When Gloria Roe recalls her favorite memories of the backcountry, she smiles easily and gazes off, imagining a distant, misty forest. The Kodiak, Ala. native said it's hard to choose one experience and explain what it's like to be so far from civilization, but it's not hard for her to decide whether places like her home need protection.

Roe is a junior studying resource conservation and education as well as a member of the UM student division of the Montana Wilderness Association. For her, the Bob Marshall Wilderness in northwestern Montana embodies the kind of places she wants to protect. The Bob is fully protected wilderness and wouldn't be affected by the proposed bill, but many see it as the future of the areas that would be affected — lands have to be wilderness study areas or roadless areas before they can ever be fully protected.

With UM's Wilderness and Civilization program, Roe spent two weeks backpacking there with other students to gain an intensive understanding of wilderness lands. Backcountry travelers recount nights when they've found the sea of stars above them so bright that they have to squint and allow their eyes to adjust. Without the glare of city lights, the Milky Way looks like a thick cloud of stardust that some spaceship churned up as it rattled across the galaxy.

"Destroying this type of land is detrimental to our future on this earth," Roe said. "Just walking through that landscape on your own two feet and experiencing the land in its rawest form makes it worth protecting."

Beyond natural beauty, wonder or appreciation for the outdoors, some believe the wilderness can save lives.

Ben Dorringtion is a director and counselor at the Wilderness Treatment Center, a rehabilitation facility for young men with drug problems. He said the founding belief of the wilderness treatment program is not that backcountry experiences change people's dependency problems. Rather, getting young people outside and having them spend weeks in the wilderness, helps them gain some self-esteem that helps them make other changes in their lives.

"To us, wilderness is tremendously important," Dorrington said. "It's really the bread and butter of our program, and we couldn't exist without such places."

The Wilderness Treatment Center based out of Marion conducts 30-day conventional in-patient stays then takes participants out for two to three weeks in the wilderness. The program serves 200 patients a year.

It's been more than 30 years since Congress has approved any new wilderness in Montana. John Gatchell, conservation director for the Montana Wilderness Association, said he hasn't seen legislation like this in the 26 years he's worked for the association, and he's worried about its impact.

"This is definitely a top-down attack on public lands and I've never seen a bill this sweeping," he said. "It's hard to know whether the House will pass this or not. You've got to take it seriously when a representative of an affected state is co-sponsoring the bill."

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Amid calls for protection of wild lands, some argue such conservation could close the door on major economic opportunities.

This summer, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., introduced HR 1581 along with Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg, R, one of 31 co-sponsors of the bill, supports it under the banner of job creation.

"Too many Montana students graduate only to find there aren't jobs for them in the state," Rehberg's spokesperson Jed Link told the Kaimin in an emailed statement.  "They're forced to leave the Last Best Place to land a job, and that's a huge problem."