What the Wilderness Has Taught Me

Editor’s Note: This blog was authored by Lilia Page. Lilia joins ICL for the summer of 2025 to help with the administration of the ICL Wilderness Stewards Program and will be contributing a series of blogs reflecting on the program, on Wilderness, and central Idaho's amazing public lands.

The gravel crunches under my tires as my dad and I turn off Highway 21 into the gateway of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, 2.3 million acres of protected land stretching before us. I’ve done this before, usually closer to my hometown of Hailey, where I patrol the Sawtooth and Boulder White Clouds Wilderness Areas. But this time, we are exploring a tiny slice of the untamed Frank Church.We reach the summit on our hike, and my eye catches an airstrip below. My dad says, “Isn’t it ironic that you can land a plane down there, but you can’t use a wheelbarrow or a chainsaw on the trails?” I chuckle and think of all the quirks that make the Wilderness Act what it is. I don’t see the Wilderness Act as just a congressional document. I see it in the elk at dusk, the bear that wandered into our camp (Bear Valley Campground is aptly named), and the Chinook salmon we saw trying to leap up Dagger Falls.At the Wilderness Steward training in June, we did an icebreaker with a Forest Service ranger. We called out words we associate with wilderness: peace, untamed, primeval, isolated. Those words float through my head now as I patrol. I am coming to terms with my own impermanence and the wilderness’s timelessness. Even though we are only here briefly, many of us feel an intrinsic duty to protect wild spaces.I recently took my friend from Chicago camping at Redfish Lake. She had never been camping before, and I wanted her to see the stars–really see them. What better place than the Central Idaho Dark Sky Preserve? Even surrounded by children playing at the lake’s edge, the words from the Wilderness Act still echoed in my head. I saw its values in every crevice of Mount Heyburn and the Sawtooths. I found the power of solitude amidst the chaos of Redfish on a busy weekend. Such is the paradox of wild spaces: surrounded by people, yet reminded of peace. Someone had shouted “life” during that training icebreaker, and that stuck. This is what we’re protecting, life. While studying at college in Boston this spring, panicking over a thesis topic, I discovered more of Aldo Leopold’s work. He was a close friend of Howard Zahniser, who authored the Wilderness Act, which was passed by Congress under the Johnson administration in 1964. In his essay on wilderness, Leopold explores its many purposes and ends with a quote that still feels relevant today: “...a militant minority of wilderness-minded citizens must be on watch throughout the nation, and available for action in a pinch.”This year’s ICL stewardship program doubled in size, which is proof that others feel this calling too. The Wilderness Steward program and our partnership with the U.S. Forest Service are crucial. We help them by being extra eyes on the ground. I’m studying environmental science and philosophy, but nothing matches field experience. On patrol, I’m reminded constantly why this work matters. Every species has a role, from the grouse that startles me on morning hikes to the caddis flies bouncing off the river in the late afternoon. I find beauty in this stillness as well. One of my favorite parts of being outside is the wildflowers. I used to take my backyard wilderness for granted. I once asked my dad, “Why do we live in the most boring place in the world?” Now I know just how wrong I was.No words can fully capture the importance of Idaho’s protected lands, only time spent in them comes close. All 4.8 million acres protected under the Wilderness Act remind me of what’s at stake. As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Boulder White Clouds Wilderness, I reflect on how important this program has been.As my dad and I descend from Bluebunch Mountain in the ‘Frank’, I feel the same sense of responsibility I’ve carried since I first became interested in climate change in high school. I feel it most at the summit, and I want to help preserve all I see. There's a quiet and profound responsibility to protect these places, for those who came before and those yet to come. These words by Leopold encapsulate my new understanding of wilderness: “It is only the scholar who understands why the raw wilderness gives definition and meaning to the human enterprise.”I may not be a scholar in Leopold’s full sense of the word, but I do understand the paradox: we need the wilderness, just as it needs us.