Dave and Jan enjoyed time with family (their whole family) during their recent trip to South Dakota. But their visit there took a little over a week (with travel time to Camp Rimrock), so they had a few days to do some exploring on the return trip to Southern California. The plan was to visit central Idaho where they had recently heard good reports about the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. So that is the direction they headed – driving through Wyoming (on I-90) and Montana (on I-90 and I-15) to Idaho, stopping overnight at a very nice KOA south of Livingston, Montana. Their first stop the next day along scenic route 43 from Montana into Idaho was a picnic lunch stop along the Jefferson River.

It was past mid-afternoon when they arrived at their destination – the little town of Stanley, Idaho at the north end of the Sawtooth Mountain Range.

The town sign says Stanley has 63 residents. There were many more than 63 during our visit, but winter months make the town rather austere – with significant mountain passes to be negotiated on any route out of the town. So there must be some buildings which sit unoccupied during winter months, because there are a fair number of structures in the town.


An evening drive along Highway 75 south of town provided good reason to want to stay and explore for a while!

After a night of rest at Elk Mountain RV Resort (and some tasty peach pie from their cafe), we drove west to Stanley Lake. The air was a little hazy, but the area was beautiful nevertheless.


The biggest part of the day was spent hiking to Sawtooth Lake on the Iron Creek trail – the longest hike Jan has been comfortable to enjoy since the Lord graciously relieved back and sciatic pain she endured for a little over a year.

It didn’t take long to learn why the mountain range is called the Sawtooth Range.

Beautiful Alpine Lake was a nice short side trip several miles up the trail. At the lake we met some fellow-hikers who offered to take a picture for us with the lake in the background.

The lake is one of numerous mountain gems in mountainous regions throughout the Western States of our amazingly beautiful country.

Late summer days were already showing a display of fall colors in the undergrowth on the forest floor – with many Aspen trees about to display golden glory in days just ahead.

With fall months coming on, there were still some nice wild flower displays to be enjoyed along some of the creek beds fairly high in the mountains.

The next lake we arrived at didn’t have a posted name, so we thought we had arrived at Sawtooth Lake. But the description Jan had read said it was a large lake, and this lake didn’t qualify. So we are guessing it may have been “Lower Sawtooth Lake” – but it was a very nice lunch spot.


We almost started the return hike, but Dave is always curious about what is around the next bend – especially when the small lake didn’t sound like the like we might have expected. And, sure enough, just over the next rise we discovered the real Sawtooth Lake.

We were grateful that the rain which the weatherman had predicted didn’t materialize while we were on our hike, but the breeze at the lake was a little bit “nippy.”

The rain did materialize during the night, and there was fresh snow on all the higher mountains, so we decided it was time to head south, but we definitely hope to return (perhaps next summer) to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area to do more exploring of the Lord’s amazing handiwork in central Idaho!

Some time back Dave’s sister Susie made the observation that we take nice vacations. We are very grateful to the Lord that we live in such a beautiful country and that she was absolutely right! It was a nice vacation!!