Books: Bound for the Backcountry II features remote NW airstrips

After writing the first comprehensive history of Idaho’s most remote airstrips, author Richard Holm Jr., has released “Bound for the Backcountry II — A History of Airstrips in the Wallowas, Hells Canyon, and the Lower Salmon River.”

The book contains the histories of more than 40 isolated airstrips in west central Idaho and eastern Oregon, including those in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, the middle Snake River (Hells Canyon Dam to Cache Creek), and the lower Salmon River (American Bar to the Snake River). Besides details of construction and historical events, the book includes stories about homesteaders, ranchers, boaters, hikers, hunters, pilots and airplanes. It includes maps and more than 250 black and white photographs.

Holm, who lives in Boise and McCall, will sign copies of his books at 6:30 p.m. Friday, May 1 at the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest Grangeville office, 104 Airport Road; 1 p.m. Saturday, May 2 at the Kooskia Library; and June 27 at War Bird Weekend in Grangeville.

“Bound for the Backcountry II — A History of Airstrips in the Wallowas, Hells Canyon, and the Lower Salmon River,” by Richard Holm Jr.
Cold Mountain Press
251 pages, $29.95