Hughes Creek, Idaho Stream Restoration Project

Hughes Creek is a tributary of the North Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, just a few miles south of Montana's Lost Trail Pass (so named because Lewis and Clark were totally lost there in 1805). Stream habitat in Hughes Creek was badly impaired by intensive placer mining operations over a century ago, coupled with livestock grazing and water withdrawals for irrigation. Hughes Creek had become channelized into a fairly straight and uniformly shallow channel without pools or any large in stream wood, providing little cover or habitat for wild trout and salmon. On August 14-15, 2009, a team of Trout Conservancy volunteers, along with an experienced horse logger and folks from the Salmon Valley Stewardship, created several whole-tree debris jams in Hughes Creek to improve habitat quality for chinook salmon and steelhead, bull trout, and westslope cutthroat trout. The project work should benefit salmon and trout for many years to come, providing shelter, creating pools and collecting food (organic matter) for the bugs that are the base of aquatic life. Click HERE to see a YouTube video of the horse team in action!

Volunteers get briefed before work starts on August 14, 2009. Notice the draft horses next to their trailer	Looking at the project site in May 2009	An aerial view of Hughes Creek from 10,000 feet above; the whitish swaths are old mining tailings. The red area denotes the 2009 project work
Piling smaller diameter branches or 'kack' for later addition to each debris jam; 'kack' provides instant habitat value to a site	Draft horse power was used to pull and place whole trees with nary a trace left behind	Volunteers and project managers en route to Hughes Creek, August 14th
A finished site # 5, August 15, 2009; all the large wood and 'kack' make for excellent fish habitat. Within 24 hours, young steelhead had moved into this site	Work during the debris jam creation process; everything was carefully and purposely placed to maximize habitat creation, especially during high flows	Site # 5 before we started; this spot was typical of this part of Hughes Creek, with very poor fish habitat due to the lack of large wood and complex structure