Chainsaws in the Frank: The Forest Service and IOGA Just Trashed the Wilderness Act

The U.S. Forest Service just handed a massive, gas-powered middle finger to the Wilderness Act of 1964.

In a backroom deal completely devoid of public notice or NEPA environmental reviews, the agency approved a petition by the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association (IOGA) to allow gas-powered chainsaws across 542 miles of trails inside the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

Supposedly, it’s a temporary three-year exemption to clear an “extraordinary backlog” of up to 110,000 downed trees. In reality? It is a blatant money run that compromises the very definition of wild spaces for private profit.

Harvesting Nature, Not Experiencing It

Let’s be entirely honest about who this exemption actually serves.

IOGA isn’t fighting for the solo backpacker, the minimalist hiker or the preservation of primitive solitude. They are fighting for their bottom line.

• The Business Model: Outfitters cater heavily to wealthy, out-of-state clients who view Idaho’s wild spaces not as a sanctuary to experience, but as a resource to consume and harvest.
• The Crutch: These clients are ferried deep into the backcountry on horseback to reaches they could never dream of accessing on foot.
• The Reality: The vast majority of these paying customers wouldn’t survive a single, self-sustained day in the rugged terrain of the Frank without a guide holding their hand.

Chainsaws aren’t being brought in to save the wilderness, they are being brought in to ensure high-margin horse trains can keep moving extraction-focused tourists through the woods with minimal friction.

Two Decades of Trail Reality: What Outfitters Actually Leave Behind

The Forest Service wants us to believe that commercial outfits act as proxy stewards of our public lands. But relying on a commercial enterprise to maintain a primitive ecosystem creates an inherent conflict of interest.

Over more than 20 years of backpacking through the Frank, I have personally run into these horseback outfitters time and time again. Here is the reality of what “outfitter stewardship” actually looks like on the ground:

• Systemic Accountability Gaps: While individual guides may intend to do the right thing, enforcement in the backcountry is functionally non-existent. I have personally witnessed outfitter groups smoking cigarettes and cigars while drinking beer on horseback during active, strict wildfire restrictions, an immense risk in a fragile ecosystem.
• The Commercial Footprint: Despite “Leave No Trace” expectations, high-volume commercial camps routinely leave a heavy mark. It is a common backcountry frustration to walk into an outfitter site after they pack out and find metal cans and glass bottles buried in fire pits, plastic trash scattered in the brush, left-behind food waste and improperly buried human waste. Oh, and let’s not forget about the gut piles.
• Selective Maintenance: These commercial outfits aren’t going to sweat over maintaining the Frank as a cohesive ecosystem. They are predictably going to target the high-traffic, highly accessible mainline corridors that directly feed their profitable camps.

This exemption isn’t about wilderness stewardship, it is about shifting public infrastructure maintenance to private entities for commercial convenience.

Echoes and Exhaust: The Environmental Cost

The Frank Church is the largest contiguous wilderness area in the Lower 48, specifically designated to provide a primitive refuge “untrammeled by man.” Now, it’s going to sound like a logging suburb.

The introduction of loud, polluting, gas-powered engines into a fragile habitat that has never permitted them is a disaster for local wildlife.

• Acoustic Shattering: The high-decibel whine of chainsaws will echo for miles through pristine canyons, shattering the quiet.
• Habitat Disruption: This unprecedented noise pollution lands directly during critical periods for native wildlife, threatening animal habitats, interrupting mating cycles and endangering vulnerable offspring.

The Opposition: Legal Chaos and Conservation Cowardice

The pushback is real, but the lines in the sand are incredibly disappointing.

According to reporting by the Idaho Statesman and KUNC, the conservation community is deeply split, exposing some serious cowardice:

• The Cowardice: In a staggering display of compromise, the Idaho Conservation League (ICL) actually threw its support behind this plan, chalking it up to an “exceptionally bad” situation. Giving up the core tenets of the Wilderness Act the moment a problem gets tough is a slippery slope to total deregulation.
• The Real Opposition: Massive accolades belong to Wilderness Watch. They uncovered this shady deal via public records requests and are actively fighting it. Executive Director George Nickas correctly slammed the authorization as “blatantly illegal,” noting it’s entirely about human domination and changing the character of the wilderness to meet commercial demands.

What Happens Next?

Wilderness Watch has already sent an urgent request to Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz to halt the implementation until a proper judicial review can take place. Sadly, chainsawing has already begun.

Crosscut handsaws are still completely viable. They take more time and effort, but that is the explicit point of preserving a primitive wilderness space. If the Forest Service can’t maintain the trails legally, they need to fix their staffing and funding issues, not outsource illegal logging to commercial entities.

The absolute kicker is that the Forest Service already knows how to handle this legally, because they’ve done it for decades. Historically, the agency didn’t run to corporate extraction groups the second a trail got blocked (they partnered with actual, non-motorized trail maintenance crews).

Organizations like the Arizona Conservation Corps and similar regional dirt-and-grit outfits have spent years clearing brutal backcountry blockages from the Frank using nothing but crosscut saws, axes and pure muscle. These groups proved that you can maintain hundreds of miles of wilderness trails perfectly fine without the need for gas-powered anything.

Hopefully, we will see Advocates for the West and other conservation organizations join the legal fray immediately to protect the Frank from becoming a motorized playground for corporate guides.

Speak Up for the Frank

The future of the Frank Church Wilderness shouldn’t be decided in a closed room. If you want to keep public lands primitive and untrammeled, your voice needs to be heard by both the agency that failed to protect it and the commercial group driving the change.

Demand Accountability from the U.S. Forest Service

Chief Tom Schultz has publicly emphasized a “back-to-basics” approach focused on core agency duties and public relationships. Remind him that bypassing public NEPA reviews to allow gas-powered engines in a designated wilderness is the exact opposite of that mission.

Contact Tom Schultz: sm.fs.webmaster@usda.gov

Challenge the Commercial Narrative at IOGA

Let IOGA know that true wilderness stewardship does not include the noise and exhaust of gas-powered engines. Remind them that traditional, non-motorized trail crews have successfully maintained these corridors for decades using crosscut saws and muscle. If a commercial outfit cannot operate within primitive rules, they shouldn’t be operating in a designated wilderness.

Contact Erik Weiseth: erik@ioga.org