There has been some nice color the last few weeks in north central Idaho. The hardwoods (birch, mountain ash, cherry, cottonwood) along the rivers have been especially vibrant this fall. The western larch has been a little slower to change but seems to be hitting its peak as we turn the calendar into November.
We’ve been on several sections of the Elk City Wagon Road but up until now, we hadn’t made a trip of driving the length of it. Time for that to change. After all, the road starts within a five minute drive of home!
What is the Elk City Wagon Road? The road was constructed in 1894 and 1895 as a route from the South Fork of the Clearwater River to the goldfields of the Elk City area. Most of the route is still drivable today, even though there is very little left of the inns, stables and towns that popped up along the way to support the miners on their way to discover riches. It remained the main route to Elk City until the 1930’s.
We’d just finished up our backpack trip around the Alice Toxaway Loop. It took us about six hours to drive to the trailhead. We thought we’d take the backroads home, which took us about three days, where we discovered along the way entirely new (to us) parts of Idaho.
