The Sawtooth Mountains

 We are now in Stanley, Idaho. This area has many hotsprings along the Salmon River and we are using a book called Hiking Hot Springs in the Pacific Northwest (Litton) to help us find them. I wanted to mention last post that we bought another book called Guide to Idaho Paddling (Daly and Watters) that guided us on our route along the Challis stretch of the Salmon.

 Stanley is a cute little town... they suffered 8 weeks of fire here this year and where we hiked today had seen miles of fire destroyed forest eight years ago. We hiked to two lakes in the Cloud Mountains, across the valley from the Sawtooth range-- Fourth of July, shown here....

 and Washington. They were both beautiful with a chilly wind blowing but a warm intermittent sun. For mid-October it is pretty amazing that the snows haven't come yet.

 The earth is dry and the plants have died back. Hunters, some with wolf tags, are everywhere but this trail did not allow ATVs so we had a quiet day without them. The earth is just waiting for its blanket of snow and time of dormancy.