Checking out Salmon, Idaho

We combined our trip to Sisters, OR with a follow-on week near the Grand Tetons, but since our reservations didn’t exactly coincide, we filled a few days with a stop-over in Salmon, ID. I thought the drive from Sisters to Salmon was a bit too long, so we did a layover in Boise. In the morning, before driving to Salmon, we biked along the Boise River trail. We rode about 20 miles, and apparently could have done more as the trail continues on outside of the city limits to a county park by a lake.

The drive from Boise to Salmon goes through beautiful country, especially the Sawtooth range, but clouds were low enough to obscure most of the peaks. Once we got to the Salmon River valley, we again found ourselves in the midst of heavy smoke from a nearby forest fire. We stayed at the Greyhouse Inn, a comfortable B&B a few miles outside of Salmon. Our room was in a rustic, but appropriately decorated log cabin. My only real complaint was that the wifi signal was nonexistent in our room.

Since the area around Salmon is exactly where Lewis and Clark first crossed over the continental divide (and then found they couldn’t follow the Salmon River, so had to cross back and head north) we enjoyed driving around and stopping at many of historical signs. One day we headed north through North Fork and on to Big Hole National Battlefield. Another day we crossed over Lemhi Pass and went to Bannack, a rather large ghost town and Montana state park. As we left Salmon and headed to Driggs, we stopped by Gilmore, a mining ghost town that now has lots being sold for development. We also drove up to Meadow Lake (a pretty little lake) to eat our lunch.

Links
—Salmon ID 2011 photo gallery