Payette National Forest road to close for Great American Outdoors Act improvements

By: Christina Lords - August 17, 2023 4:15 am

Visitors to Idaho’s Payette National Forest can hike, fish, hunt, camp, ski and more on its 2.3 million acres. (Courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service)

The South Fork Salmon River Road in Idaho’s Payette National Forest will close for construction funded by the Great American Outdoors Act beginning Sept. 5, according to a press release from the U.S. Forest Service.

Road closures will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with no closures scheduled over the weekends. The road improvements are anticipated to take one month to complete, the press release said.

Signage and temporary barricades will be erected at both ends of the road, as the improvements to the pavement will require the use of heavy machinery that will occupy the entire width of the road.

There will be no access to sites along the river while construction takes place, according to the press release. During construction, access to the East Fork of the South Fork Salmon River and Yellow Pine will be available via Lick Creek Road or Johnson Creek Road.

For information, contact the Krassel Ranger District at 208-634-0600.

road closure map

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Christina Lords

Christina Lords is the editor-in-chief of the Idaho Capital Sun and has been a professional journalist covering local and state government since graduating from the University of Idaho in 2009. A Pocatello native, Lords is a fifth-generation Idahoan who served as a reporter at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and the Post Register in Idaho Falls and served as assistant editor for the Idaho Press in Nampa. She also led the Idaho Statesman in Boise for two years before turning to nonprofit journalism.