The Harlem News

"Trail Riders of the Wilderness"

This summer will explore one of the outstanding primitive areas of this state, according to officials of the American Forestry association of Washington, D. C., which each year organizes wilderness expeditions in cooperation with the United States forest service and the national park service.

Parties of from fifteen to twenty-five men and women, accompanied by foresters, naturalists, geologists, medical officers, guides, packers, wranglers and cooks, using from sixty to eighty horses, make the trips, and this state has one of the four northwest areas to be explored.

These include the Sawtooth mountain region around Sun Valley in Idaho, which became famous last winter when opened by the Union Pacific as America's premier ski resort and which will also be a summer sports paradise this year; the Flathead-Sun river wilderness of Montana, the Wind river range in Wyoming and the Olympic mountains of Washington.

The mountain expedition will start from Missoula on July 3, and the caravan of riders will penetrate into the land where the Blackfeet Indians held their ceremonial sun dance in years gone by. In this Flathead-Sun river wilderness of peaks and valleys ablaze with rare wildflowers, where the continental divide rises in bulky summits, the riders will remain until July 15.

The next expedition will probe the mystery of Wind river range in Wyoming, one of the most dramatic wilderness areas remaining in continental United States. High, rugged country, most of it at elevations of from 10,000 to 13,700 feet, it is a kingdom of timberline trees, broken rock, ice and solitude. In this top country, land of many glaciers, picturesque Scout Jim Bridger found his greatest solitude. The party will enter from Kemmerer, Wyoming, on July 18, remaining until July 31.

Not far away as the crow flies is another domain of mountains and pines and silver lakes, the great Sawtooth mountain region of Idaho. Gathering at Shoshone on August 4, the trail riders will go beyond Sun valley into the "goat country" which will attract many to the resort and will remain until August 17.

In this wild paradise, primitive breadth and color, boldness and charm, have been preserved in the surroundings of rugged, forested mountains where wild life abounds and where tumbling rivers and streams are filled with game fish.

As the autumn leaves turn, the final expedition will push into Washington's Olympic mountains, a story book land of peaks that rise in majestic beauty over a hinterland of virgin forests. Here they will ride from August 20 to September 1 in a wildwood built on a grand scale. Although seldom exceeding 8,000 feet in elevation, the Olympics rise abruptly from sea level, enhancing their massiveness and forest growth.

Wilderness all, these last frontiers of America where trails are the only highways and the sun and moon the only guide, will provide pure joys for these summer-time "Trail Riders."