The Ministry of Forests will start looking after Idaho Peak again. Area H director Don Munro says the MoF "reversed its decision to bail out of Idaho Peak maintenance" and will once again look after the road, the lookout building and the washrooms.

"When they started to do their [provincial] tour on the new forestry plan, at every center they went to, they were bombarded with complaints about bailing out of recreation areas, so the minister decided to put some money into them."

Munro said the MoF's Dan Reibin and Fred Thiessen told him they really appreciated the work the volunteer groups had done up there in the last couple of years, and should contact MoF with their concerns and suggestions.

Will Idaho Peak still become a park? The idea is up in the air with the announcement two weeks ago that the Forestry Service will once more look after maintenance of the road, trail and buildings.

Area H director Don Munro said the Regional District of Central Kootenay is still open to the idea. Removing it from MoF jurisdiction and making it a park would qualify it for funding from other agencies, such as the Columbia Basin Trust.

The volunteer group that's been looking after the popular site continues to work on it, this time with government help. Spokesman Mark Adams says they've just replaced the roof on the outhouse at the ridge parking lot, and they were scheduled to put in a new outhouse at the peak. They've carried up all the materials to the parking lot, dug the hole and are constructing a base for the ministry standard building. When the base is installed over the hole, the volunteers will beef up the outhouse to withstand the high mountain weather, and then helicopter it up to the site and onto the base.

Ministry recreation technician Lenard Loverenow says he's trying to get some free air time to get the outhouse to its final home.

He has met with Adams and talked about the work that needs to be done. In addition to the outhouses, water bars have to be cleaned or replaced, deadfall cleared on the Wakefield trail, the lookout building has to have a loose guy wire replaced and it also needs painting. However, the ministry's protection division is responsible for the actual tower and "I'm not sure what they're willing to do. Their budget is limited."

Forestry plans to clean out sloughs in the ridge parking lot and road, expand the Alamo lot with fill, fix the log barrier and put up signage, in particular one banning bikes from the narrow trail.

Asked who belonged to the volunteer group, Adams said he couldn't name them all because there was so much support in community that "gobs of people" show up for the work parties. As for the organizers - "Ann [Bunka] organizes things, Bob [Varaleau] does things and I'm the pretty face."

Most people reading this paper have been to Idaho Lookout to enjoy the fantastic alpine flower shows in July and August. The road is now snow-free and in pretty good condition, so get the camera, binoculars, a snack and some bug repellant and get up there for a fine day trip.

Not as many folks have ventured south and east along the ridge from the main parking lot to Selkirk Peak, prominent about one km away. The route to it departs from past the outhouse right off the lot and above the Wakefield trail, which descends to Silverton Creek. Selkirk Peak requires some thoughtful scrambling on the final couple hundred metres to the peak, and demands more than sandals and sunglasses, but may be worth a visit sometime.

Anyhow, I had noticed several helicopter loads of gear being slung up to the old TV tower site last week from [my] backyard vantage point in New Denver, and decided to make the trip up to Idaho, and onward to the repeater site to see just what was up, up there...

So I simply motored up the mountain in the early evening to get some good sunset photos and camp right in my van at the upper main parking lot. There was a big pick-up camper settled in over at the Alamo Basin lot, though I didn't meet those folks until the next morning on the trail. The sun went down literally in a blaze of glory towards Nakusp, then the cool and calm of nightfall ensued.

At 5 am the sun rose from out Kaslo way, and all the peaks gained that moment of amazing pink alpenglow. Early morning air seems much clearer, so I snapped off a few photos and after a hit of coffee, set off again for the lookout. Very quiet, with no bear sign or even people sign, and only faint sounds of traffic far below on Hwy 6 in town. The lookout was great, and I made the steep descent down the north side of the lookout peak en route to the little shacks and towers at the old repeater site.

There's way more flowers along the way that I'd recalled from my last time there, and a nice, evident little path that leads through some trees and up and down a bit until you emerge at the repeater site. There were three neatly bundled slings of building supplies, I'd guess, and several small fresh concrete piers ready for some new enterprise. Maybe cell phone repeater? Perhaps new TV stuff? Maybe a secret government spy installation?...Ooops...

The view perspective from here differs from the lookout, and the walk is certainly worth the effort and extra hour of rambling time. Looking back at the lookout peak, I was intrigued to see an obvious traverse trail leading around below the lookout hill itself, heading to the right, crossing the large, steep, west-facing meadow. It departs maybe 200 metres below the peak, and is easy to find, once you've notice it. This is a perfect route back to the main access trail, and deposits you about 200 metres short of the lookout, but is much less evident to see from the main trail.

This trail is nearly level, and traverses some great meadows, with good looks down to the lake and into New Denver. Much of the path is choked with flowers, and the route seems to have had no measurable use, oddly enough. Only at the main trail or front side of the peak does it become less perfect, with two small trees over it, and some bear diggings from past years. This is a lovely and easy detour to get around to the repeater site, then you can just plod back up the steep pitch to the lookout to complete a loop.

This detour trail needs only a couple of hours of touching up with a chainsaw and weed whacker and a sign to divert hikers to another aspect of the Idaho Lookout experience. The Forest Service has finally taken a renewed interest in this site after some years of neglect, and maybe some signage and grooming will come to pass. The local volunteer group were up there on the past weekend to do some repairs and here's hoping that the future of this special place will be brighter and more of a sure thing.