Mountain

Idaho 2017, Part 1

With the end of fire season and cool weather in the forecast it was time to hit the road for a week off.  Off to the high country of Idaho.  Your vision of Idaho may be from I-84 passing through the southern part of the state.  If so you may equate Idaho with a weedy wasteland of dairy cows and junk cars.  And that is what is it.  Trust me.  Disregard the rest of this post and stay home.

We were Stanley bound, but we decided to take a day getting there and made our way up into the Payette River country and stayed overnight on the way.  The river, mountains and forests were beautiful and call for a visit of their own.

South Fork Payette River

 

Payette Colors

We enjoyed an evening around the fire and were up the next day for the short drive the rest of the way to Stanley Lake.

The inlet campground at Stanley Lake is about how I left it last time I was there, which seems like quite a few years back.  There’s a few less trees, and a few more dead ones, and the infrastructure is wearing out without much maintenance, but the mountains and lake don’t change.  Beautiful as ever.

Mt. McGown from Stanley Lake

 

Stanley Lake

 

There are lots of memories at this lake.  It is always good to be back.

 

A view you never tire of

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Steens Mountain, 2017

After a pretty steady run of rivers it was time to stay ashore for the weekend and head to Steens Mountain.  Steens Mountain is a huge fault block mountain in southeastern Oregon.  From the west it’s a steady incline, from the east a steep dramatic drop off.  The western side is also riddled with dramatic glacial canyons you can only appreciate with a good hike.  We arrived for the weekend just before dark on Friday night at South Steens campground.  There were about four other camps, not bad for a Friday night.  Just as we set up and had the fire started the rain set in and we spent the rest of the night in the camper.

 

Trailhead, Big Indian Gorge

 

Next morning we were off to hike up the Big Indian Gorge.  I’d only been here once before quite a while back.  It wasn’t a wilderness then, but it was probably a little more wild.  Anyhow, we made our way toward the gorge, a big glacial carved canyon cutting deep into the west side of the mountain.  Note the new snow from the night before.  It is June, right?

 

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