Sunday, June 16, 2019

June 16 – To Stanley, Idaho

This morning we made the short move farther north into the Sawtooth Mountains, to Stanley Idaho.


It involved going up and over 8800 foot Galena Pass. We started at about 5800 feet in Ketchum and ended at about 6300 feet in Stanley. It was only a 6% grade on each side so it was no problem, just slow. There are enough turnouts that we didn’t hold anyone up.

We are staying at Valley Creek Lodge. They have 4 full hookup sites beside the lodge.

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And a great view of the mountains. This is from the front of the parking lot.

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And one from the RV roof. Those trees do block our front window view a bit.

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We might get some good sunrise views, if we could ever get up that early.

There are plenty of free forest service boondocking site on the backroads and many no hookup forest service campgrounds but I looked at the forecast for this week and it called for nightly lows in the low single digits Celsius. So we wimped out and are staying at one of the few full hookup campgrounds in the area. The WIFI isn’t too bad either.

Stanley has a summertime population of about 300 but that drops to 40 in the winter because Stanley is supposed to have the most brutally cold and snowy conditions of anywhere in the US, outside of Alaska.

After we got setup and had lunch we drove the short, dirt Nip and Tuck Road that climbs the ridge just north of Stanley to some nice lookouts.

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We drove it from east to west. The entrance off of Highway 75 was unmarked and looked like someone’s driveway. Without the GPS I would not have found it.

The initial part was through a valley and was a bit rough but any car could have handled it.

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The afternoon dark clouds were moving in.

Eventually we climbed up enough to see the mountains to the south. There were lots of people camping at the many small side roads. This guy had a pretty good view.

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A viewpoint a little farther along.

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The photosphere.

At another, we could see back down the long valley that we had come up from Ketchum.

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With Stanley down in the left corner.

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We took a short side road that led to a height of land with an almost 360 degree view. I was surprised that no one was camping there.

Yet another panorama.

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I took a photosphere but somehow the phone didn’t process it properly. It has been acting up lately and I should have waited to make sure it completed.

I got the drone out for a few shots.

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The drone version of a photosphere is here.

Completing the loop took us back down into a wide valley.

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Then back to the highway and home.

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