Zena Creek Ranch is a 50-acre private inholding east of McCall, Idaho.
A former logging camp, the ranch includes twelve cabins, a main lodge, and numerous workshops. The eponymous Zena Creek flows through the property and drains into the Secesh River, which in turn meets the South Fork Salmon River four miles downstream.
Fully off-grid and very remote, the ranch is surrounded by the Payette National Forest, with the expansive Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to the east.
Originally homesteaded in the early 1900’s, Zena Creek Ranch’s history - and future - is interconnected to the tribal, mining, logging, and recreational communities in the region.
The Next Chapter
The Nez Perce Tribe and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes were the first visitors to the area, setting up temporary camps on the lower bars of the South Fork Salmon for easy access to the river and summer runs of salmon.
The first white people to enter the area were fur trappers, and when gold was discovered in 1862 still more arrived to make their fortunes. Chinese settlers were also among those prospecting for gold.
Sometime between 1913 - 1916, Clyde Parks began successfully homesteading the flat at the mouth of Zena Creek and established what was then called Parks Ranch. The ranch was purchased in the late 1940's by Brown Tie and Lumber and made into a logging camp in the midst of a robust era of timber sales in the drainage.
For the next thirty plus years the ranch would be known as Brown’s Camp, and many Forest Service maps still refer to it as such to this day. But when Jim and Gerri Adkins, longtime Yellow Pine residents, purchased the property in 1975 they renamed it Zena Creek Ranch. For decades the Adkins rented the cabins to hunters, youth groups, and outdoor enthusiasts from all over the United States. Their hospitality, and Gerri’s apple pie, are legendary in the area.
In late 2021, four families with a love of the area purchased Zena Creek Ranch with intentions to refurbish the cabins and update the ranch’s infrastructure. As this next chapter is being written, we seek to honor the past while showcasing what a net zero-energy future could look like in rural Idaho.