Peter and I took this trip in late August of 2009. Our first stop was the Jack in the Box in Burley, ID, but I spared you a picture of that. After having lunch, we set out toward Shoshone where the Sawtooth Scenic Byway starts.
Our first stop was going to be Mammoth Cave right before Shoshone...we started down a dirt road and the outbuildings were kind of creepy…the road kept going and going and Peter said that it reminded him of the movie The Hills Have Eyes…we turned back due to fear.
We did however make it to the Shoshone Indian Ice Caves, the largest known lava ice caves in the world. This was a great stop, complete with kitschy statues and a gift shop. In the pictures you can see the glacier at the bottom of the cave. Locals harvested ice from this cave starting in the 1930’s. The town’s claim to fame was ice cold beer, which was hard to come by in the arid desert back then.
Sun Valley, ID was filled with spoiled trustfund brats, so we hauled ass out of there and stopped in Ketchum to to take a few pics:
Galena Summit:
We stayed in Stanley, ID. Population: 101. It was a laid back, blue collar town, and it was perfect. We stayed in a cabin that had a porch that backed up to the Salmon River and a pristine view of the Sawtooth Mountains.
There were numerous hot pots along the Salmon River. We explored the area extensively.
We went to the village of Sunbeam and saw the Dam.
Half of the dam was dynamited in the 1930's making the Salmon River the last free flowing river in the west. Mining implements are scattered all around the area by Stanley and the Yankee Fork Road.
We then drove up the Yankee Fork Road where the sides of the dirt road were covered by mine tailings. We saw the Yankee Fork Gold Dredge:
Along the Yankee Fork Road are the ghost towns of Bonanza and Custer. And this rapscallion loves her a good cemetery!
Beware, it is a creepy bastard spider:
Bonanza was great becuase it was not at all restored or kept up, just a cool old ghost town. Custer was restored with a retired couple running the gift shop for the few non-snow months in this region. Of course they were from Utah; you just can't get away from the Utardians...even in the rural wilderness.
Boothill was right by these two ghost towns with a single grave site:
We then drove up Upper Loon Road until the dirt road became too treacherous to navigate. We saw old abandoned cabins and stopped for a few roadside beers and sandwiches.
We drove to Redfish Lake Lodge, took a few pictures, walked half way around the lake, and then were annoyed by crying children. Needless to say, we retreated back to the mountains and had a few cold ones.
Stanley Lake:
And that was our goddamned Sawtooth National Recreation Area adventure. We enjoyed the hell out of it.
Info. on the SNRA:
No comments:
Post a Comment