Sapphire Wilderness Study Area on Google Earth

Wildlands CPR presents this virtual tour that follows two popular trails within the WSA: the Chain of Lakes Trail #39, and part of Tr. #313 following the border between the Bitterroot and Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forests.

When the Sapphire WSA was established in 1977, these were single track trails that now have become double track routes either through continued use, or in the case of Tr.#39, purposely widened by the Forest Service to accommodate off-road vehicles.

To help people follow along, please note that:

  • The bright green color oulines the Bitterroot NF portion of the WSA;
  • The yellow color outlines the Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF portion; and
  • The bright purple lines represent trails, and may be a little off of the actual path due to the scale of the GIS data obtained from the Forest Service.

To view the tour and explore the area from within your own stand-alone Google Earth application simply  download the KMZ file containing the tour in the File Attachment box at the bottom of the page or in the right hand box.

Google Earth Tour Instructions

Open file: Final Sapphire Tour -picture version.kmz (must have Google Earth installed. Go to: http://earth.google.com/ and click "download")

Once open the file will appear in your "temporary places" with a "+" next to it. Click on the "+" to expand the file and click once on "Waypoints" to so it is highlighted. At the bottom of the "Places" box you will see an arrow and a square indicating play and stop. Press the arrow to begin the tour, and stop on the last waypoint, #29.

Please note that you may need to adjust your settings to view the balloons during the tour. Simply open the tools tab and click options. Click the touring tab and make sure there is a check in the box titled, "Show balloons when tour is paused." Additionally you can adjust the pause time for balloon display in the box titled, "Tour Pause;" make sure this is set at 10 seconds.


Thanks to Broads Healthy Lands Project, a program of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, for helping with this project. Check out their website at http://www.healthylands.org/ or contact tim@greatoldbroads.org for more information.

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Final Sapphire Tour - web picture version.kmz213.06 KB