STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

A look at 50 years of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 27, on the lawn of Ketchum’s Community Library.

The panel discussion regarding the history and the future of 756,000 acres of land north of Ketchum will include Kathryn Grohusky, executive director of the Sawtooth Society; Lin Gray, executive director of the Sawtooth Interpretive and Historical Association; Kirk Flannigan, area ranger at the SNRA, and Paul Ries, former SNRA area ranger.

The SNRA was established on Aug. 22, 1972, after Idahoans joined together to protect the 11,820-foot Castle Peak and other parts of the White Clouds from being mined for molybdenum. Four hundred people gathered to dedicate the area upon its creation.

The SNRA now includes the Sawtooth Wilderness, Cecil D. Andrus-White Clouds Wilderness and the Hemingway-Boulders Wilderness areas.

Carved by glaciers it’s an area filled with hundreds of glacial lakes, hanging valleys and cirques. The headwaters of the Salmon River, or the River of No Return, start in the SNRA near Redfish Lake, and the headwaters of the Big Wood, Boise and Payette rivers also start in the SNRA.

One of the most scenic Westerns ever filmed—Clint Eastwood’s “Pale Rider,” was filmed in the Boulder Mountains in 1984.