Covering 1.6 million acres in Montana and Idaho, the forest has its headquarters in
Hamilton. The name is derived from the bitterroot plant, which was noted by Meriwether Lewis on his journey through the region.
The forest is one of the first forest reserves and contains the site of the first US Forest Service ranger station, at Alta.
There is a variety of vegetation. The drier valley floor and lower foothills have an arid-lands mix of sage, juniper and paintbrush, broken in places by ponderosa pine. Higher up, the land receives more moisture and provides habitat for spruce, sub-alpine fir and the sub-alpine larch--found only in a few places in the United States.
There are a large nunber of wildlife species in the Forest. The most popular are mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, mountain lion, moose and black bears. Grizzly bears are not known to inhabit the Bitterroot Forest however, black bears are common.
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