Gospel-Hump Wilderness
Payette National Forest, Idaho

The Gospel-Hump Wilderness is in central Idaho, bordering the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness on its northwest side. Gospel-Hump Wilderness contains 206,053 acres with elevations ranging between 1,970' at the Wind River pack bridge across the Salmon River to the summit of Buffalo Hump at 8,940'. The name comes from a mix of the Gospel Peaks and Buffalo Hump.

While this was Nez Perce hunting grounds for many generations, the discovery of gold nearby in the 1860's brought a flood of miners that lasted for 40 years. There was another flood of gold prospectors into the area during the Great Depression. Evidence of miner depradations is all over the place.

There is a glaciated divide across Gospel-Hump separating the drainage of the South Fork of the Clearwater River from that of the lower Salmon River. North of that divide is a relatively gentle and heavily forested countryside. South of that divide is the Salmon River Breaks, a steep, sparsely vegetated area that sees extreme differences in weather: temperatures can reach 100°F along the Salmon River with snow glistening on the peaks above. You'll find moose, elk, deer, black bear, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, mountain lion, bobcat, and gray wolf wandering this countryside, mostly in the South Fork of the Clearwater River drainage.

Gospel-Hump Wilderness is almost surrounded by the decayed remains of roads that date back to the days of the gold mining legacy. These are seasonal, essentially unmaintained roads that give some amount of access to trailheads in the Salmon River Breaks area. While most of these trails head up into the high country, they are classed as "very challenging" and are often impassable into late July or August because of snow depths. The "access roads" themselves often hold snow into late June, and just because you're out here in July or August doesn't mean it won''t snow sometime today...