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’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.
The Lower Salmon is local for us. You just can't see it from the road - or the highway at least. It was an easy trip down to Lone Pine Bar outside of Cottonwood one fall morning. We found a nice campground, white sand beaches, salmon spawning in the gravel and chukars clucking on the hills. We didn't come home with a sample of the salmon or the chukar but it was good to find…