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In 1863 Lloyd Magruder was murdered while he traveled through the Bitterroot Mountains on the southern Nez Perce Trail. The travel route that now bears his name was used for centuries by the Nez Perce to travel between buffalo hunting grounds to the east and salmon fishing rivers to the west. In the 1930’s the Civilian Conservation Corps built the road through this rugged country. In 1980, when the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness was designated by Congress the “corridor” was formed, as this is the only road that divides what would otherwise be 3.5 million acres of contiguous wilderness between the Frank Church River of No Return wilderness and the Selway Bitterroot wilderness.

I’d read about the corridor several years back and put it on “the list” but now that it is practically in our backyard it moved up to a priority we needed to get out and see. We had a nice stretch of fall weather so we packed the camper and headed up the South Fork of the Clearwater River. The western larch put on quite a show with golden needles contrasting with the perfectly blue sky.

We stopped off in Elk City to top off the fuel tank and we headed off on the 101 mile corridor. A lot of this country has burned in wildfires over the past 20+ years, but from my perspective that just opens up the views to this vast rugged country.

After some research on the corridor it looked like several people wished they had more time than the one or two days they gave themselves to travel the route, so we planned for four days, even though it’s possible to drive it in two. Our first night out we celebrated a milestone, 100 nights spent in the camper during a calendar year. Prior to 2023, our best year was 72 nights in 2021. We shattered that record and are still adding nights to the list as we roll toward December.

On day two our first stop was a side hike up to Burnt Knob Lookout. There is a road that leads to the lookout, but after driving about 100 feet of it we decided it was time to take a hike. The knob affords a spectacular view of the area, looking into the Salmon River drainage to the south and the peaks of the Bitterroots to the northeast.

After our side tip to Burnt Knob we continued on the corridor enjoying vistas. The road was in much better condition than I anticipated, but this section (I’d call it the middle section) was a bit rougher than than either end. After two days we still hadn’t passed another vehicle on the road (we did see a few hunters parked or camped). We’d spent the last night along a creek and found that the cold air settled into the drainage overnight, so we opted for a ridgetop camp on night two. Not only was it twenty degrees warmer, but the views were pretty spectacular as well.

We descended the ridge the next day, dropping into the Selway River drainage.
We took a detour off the corridor and drove down the Selway to the end of the road at Paradise and ended up spending the next night on the river.

We finished up the corridor the following day, surprised to find several miles of paved road as we climbed out of the Selway drainage to the pass that divides Idaho and Montana. Along the way we passed the Magruder Ranger Station.

We had one more night out at the end of the corridor and then made our way back home over Lolo pass. The western larch again radiating its fall brilliance was the perfect bookend to this great backcountry trip.