HD 270 is the East Fork Bitterroot drainage south of Sula, tucked into the southern Bitterroot National Forest where Montana noses into Idaho. The Bitterroot Range walls the west side of the unit and the Sapphires roll up the east, with the East Fork itself cutting a long, timbered valley between them. Elevations run from about 4,400 feet on the river bottom to over 9,000 feet on the divide ridges. The lower country is open pondersoa and Douglas fir parkland with grassy benches and willow-lined creek bottoms; climb out of the bottom and you hit lodgepole, then spruce-fir on the cooler north faces, then alpine meadows and rock at the divide. Burn scars from the 2000 Bitter Creek and other fires created a mosaic of standing dead and regrowth that elk love and your knees hate. Mostly Bitterroot National Forest, with the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness running the western boundary and banning motors on that side. Some private along the river bottom near Sula and Conner. US-93 is the spine; East Fork Road (FR 5731) and the network of forest roads off it reach most of the public ground. Sula has gas, a tiny store, a few cabins; Darby and Hamilton are the real supply towns up the Bitterroot Valley. Cell service basically dies at Sula and doesn't come back until you're back on US-93 north. Elk are the headliner — this country has a real reputation, and the migration corridor through the burns is where rifle-season hunters set up. Whitetail in the river bottoms, mule deer on the higher benches, occasional black bear and lion. Snow can shut East Fork Road by Halloween in a bad year — chains, not optional.