The Roadless Project
An obsessive exploration of the last un-roaded places in the US“This is the wilderness that I need to know about when I fall asleep in the city. Even when I am not there, I need to know that this type of place still exists. I think this is something that we all need, the knowledge that there are places out there that are still wild. We need places beyond our control and at the edge of our imaginings that can be both dangerous and beautiful – the untamed source of life.”
Roadless by Nelson Guda
One man’s search for the little known wilderness
I am working on a book about my journey to find, map and photograph US Inventoried Roadless Areas. This is a story about roads, journeys and crazy ideas.
ROADLESS
One man’s search for America’s least known wilderness.
I was re-framing a photograph of a waterfall when the dogs began barking in earnest behind me. The small river coming over the waterfall was rushing off the Cleveland Peninsula in southeast Alaska. The dogs kept barking for the next fifteen minutes I spent at the falls. There were several large Grizzly bear tracks around the base of the falls, and by the time I left I was starting to get nervous. Everyone else was waiting for me in the boat. “Bears”, was the only thing our friend and guide said as I climbed into the boat. The dogs jumped in behind me.
There are no roads to Cleveland Peninsula, and that was exactly why I had wanted to go there. I was in southeast Alaska as part of my search for America’s Inventoried Roadless Areas, a set of lands identified by the US Forest Service as suitable for Wilderness protection when the Wilderness Act was passed in 1964. For three decades these lands sat in regulatory limbo. Then in 2000 a forest service regulation known as the Roadless Rule gave this vast collection of lands protection from the any further road building. In many ways, roads cut at the heart of almost every environmental issue that affects forests in the United States – water quality, endangered species management, re-introduced predators, logging, off-road vehicles, invasive species, forest fragmentation – roads are tied into all of these issues in some way.
In the middle of the ongoing political and legal upheaval surrounding the Roadless Rule I decided to track down and explore some of these places myself. I had come to Alaska after traveling to countless little known places in the lower forty-eight states – travels that led to some massive changes in my own life. As I we motored away from the peninsula, I found myself wondering when or if I would ever get back to any of these amazing places.
ROADLESS was a deeply intertwined mixture of photography from these explorations, an extensive web-mapping project (see below), a set of exhibitions starting in the U.S. Senate Building and interviews with dozens of people who support the conservation of these lands. I am putting together a book from the project – please subscribe to my email list if you’d like to know when it comes out.
Roadless Exhibit, Washington DC
Russell Senate Building, February 2009
The Photographs
A selection of images from the project.
Raggeds Roadless Area, Colorado
Dark Divide Roadless Area, Washington
Raggeds Roadless Area, Colorado
Black Mesa Roadless Area, Colorado
Last light. Colorado – ROADLESS
Buck Mesa Roadless Area
HD Mountains Roadless Area, Colorado
Night Flowers and Sunset, Colorado – ROADLESS
HD Mountains Roadless Area, Colorado
Crested Butte Roadless Area, Colorado
Colorado Roadless Area
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Smith River Roadless Area, California
Fire Remnants, Smith River Roadless Area, California
Colorado Roadless Area
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Colorado Roadless Area
Raggeds Roadless Area, Colorado
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Colorado Roadless Area
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
New Mexico Roadless Area
New Mexico Roadless Area
Ice. Tongass National Forest, Alaska – ROADLESS
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
Tongass National Forest Roadless Area, Alaska
New Mexico Roadless Area
New Mexico Roadless Area
Ice Lake Roadless Area, Colorado
Ice Lake Roadless Area, Colorado
Colorado Roadless Area
Eagle Creek Roadless Area, Oregon
Meadow Creek Roadless Area, Idaho
Crazy Lake Roadless Area, Montana
Crazy Lake Roadless Area, Montana
Dark Divide Roadless Area, Washington
Dark Divide Roadless Area, Washington
Wyoming Roadless Area
Selway River Roadless Area, Idaho
Idaho Roadless Area
Montana Roadless Are
Fairy Lake, Idaho Roadless Area
Northern Idaho Roadless Area
Hyalite Canyon, Montana Roadless Area
Gallatin Roadless Area, Montana
Idaho Roadless Area
Surprise Valley, Idaho Roadless Area
Montana Roadless Area
How to Find Inventoried Roadless Areas
Roadless.info
When I began the Roadless Project in 2006, there were no publicly available maps of the U.S. Inventoried Roadless Areas, making the lands virtually impossible to find without GIS. I spent nearly a year creatign a public mapping site of the roadless lands. The map was used by dozens of regional conservation groups in their work to protect these lands, and soon outdoor enthusiasts began accessing the maps as well.
In 2022 I built roadless.info – a new roadless area map that utilizes Google Earth Engine to give more data about the lands including forest type, forest maturity and fire history.
You can also use this map to get driving directions to any roadless area, a must if you want to explore these unique places, because there are still no signs.