Travel with us to the Salmon River north of Ketchum. Ducks are swimming, beavers are building dams and a pair of sandhill cranes observe a waterfall in the early morning light.

The Sawtooth National Recreation Area is home to more than 700,000 acres of mountain peaks, 700 miles of trails and more than 300 alpine lakes … all in central Idaho. This month marks 50 years since the SNRA was formed by the U.S. Congress.

Rachel Cohen went to the Sawtooths to look at the past, present and future of this natural area. She joined Idaho Matters to talk about her experience in this wild and beautiful landscape. She asked many questions in her multi-part series, including:

• Why isn’t the SNRA a National Park?
• Why are salmon the ‘soul’ of the SNRA?
• How is the intersection of public and private land working?
• Why is the SNRA called Idaho’s conservation experiment?