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Adoption Status: ADOPTED
505 acres (0.8 square miles)
How to get there
The Blair Mountain roadless area is located about 16 miles north of New Castle.
- From New Castle, follow signs to the Buford-Newcastle Road (FS
245). Take this for many miles to Hiner Spring, and turn right (east)
onto Blair Mountain Road (FS 601; 4WD). At Cow Lake, bear left on a 4WD
road that leads to Crater Lake Trailhead. From here, the Blair Mountain
Trail (2098) crosses flat grasslands to the Flat Tops Wilderness
boundary before plunging over the rim of Blair Mountain down to Crater
Lake.
- The USGS 7 1⁄2’ quad for the Blair Mountain roadless area is Blair Mountain.
Setting
The
Blair Mountain roadless area sits on Blair Mountain, an arm of the
White River Plateau that overlooks Patterson Creek. The terrain
consists of a high, relatively flat plateau covered in alpine
grasslands, and the occasional spruce or fir tree. The west side of
Blair Mountain is a 400 foot-high cliffed rim that lies on the boundary
of the Flat Tops Wilderness Area. The elevation ranges from 10,700 feet
to 11,400 feet on Blair Mountain.
What’s special about it?
The
surrounding area receives extremely heavy hunting and four wheel
driving use during the fall. This roadless area accordingly acts as a
buffer between heavy use on FS 601 and the Flat Tops Wilderness Area.
It has an excellent representation of alpine grasslands, and is summer
range for big game. The scenery is outstanding.
Potential threats
This
unit has gentle, open terrain, and there are no barriers to rampant
off-road vehicle use. Motorized activity leaves a lasting impact on the
sensitive grasslands on the plateau that takes decades to recover from.
Other info
The
Blair Mountain RA, as surveyed by conservation groups, is actually
1,728 (2.7 square miles) acres in size. This is 1,223 acres larger than
the roadless area recognized by the USFS who left those acres out
because of manageability concerns. But they are in fact roadless, and
should be recognized as such. The Blair Mountain RA is one of nine RAs
adjacent to the Flat Tops Wilderness that, taken together with the
wilderness area, forms a massive roadless complex of over 342,000 acres (533 square miles), the largest on the White River National Forest!
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