Jedediah Smith Wilderness

The Jedediah Smith Wilderness is a sanctuary from the type of wilderness area in the U.S. state of Wyoming, directly on the border with Idaho. The sprawling area is located in the Rocky Mountains on the western flank of the Teton Range and has an area of nearly 500 square kilometers. The reserve is named after Jedediah Smith, a trapper, fur trader and explorer who explored the first white parts of the Rocky Mountains in the 1820s.

In the north, bordering the Wilderness to the Yellowstone National Park, on the east by the Grand Teton National Park, in the south it extends to the Teton Pass. The area is part of the Targhee National Forest, a National Forest and is managed by the United States Forest Service.

Description

The reserve was established in 1984 to secure the karst landscape with bizarre limestone formations and caves. As a Wilderness Area, there are no touristic or other infrastructure, there are no roads, paths are maintained only sporadically. Permitted uses are trekking and trail riding, within strict conditions and fishing.

As a wilderness area in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is the Jedediah Smith Wilderness habitat and refuge for large mammals such as black bear, grizzly bear, bighorn sheep, wolverine, moose and elk.