Sawtooth Scenic Byway

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Shoshone Idaho

   Shoshone sits on the Snake River Plain in south-central Idaho, a flat, dry, lava-floored country of sagebrush, irrigated fields and enormous skies, and it is the county seat of Lincoln County, with about fifteen hundred people. Its stone buildings date from the days when the railroad arrived, in the 1880s, and the town was a junction where cattle and sheep were shipped. The courthouse and the old storefronts have a worn, dignified look, and the whole place has the unhurried air of a town that has seen a lot and seen it go by.

   Read the complete Shoshone Idaho write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Shoshone Idaho is where the day begins. Next is Ketchum.

2. 2. Ketchum

   Ketchum is the small town below the big ski mountain, at about 1,800 metres in the Wood River Valley of central Idaho, and it is best known for two things: skiing, and Ernest Hemingway. The writer first came in the late 1930s as a guest of the new Sun Valley resort, returned often, and settled here in his last years. He died in Ketchum in 1961 and is buried in the town cemetery, under a simple slab that visitors still leave pennies and bottles on. A memorial to him stands nearby in the woods beside Trail Creek.

   Read the complete Ketchum write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ketchum comes up about 88 km into the recorded legs. Next is Galena Summit.

3. 3. Galena Summit

   Galena Summit is a broad, quiet notch in the Smoky Mountains at 2,652 metres, and it is the high point of the Sawtooth Scenic Byway, but the reason people stop is the view from the overlook just to the north. From a wide pull-out on the rim you look north across the Sawtooth Valley, a vast, flat-bottomed basin of sagebrush and meadow with the Salmon River winding through it, and beyond it the long, jagged wall of the Sawtooth Mountains, grey and white against the sky. It is one of those views that feels like a map suddenly turned into land.

   Read the complete Galena Summit write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 136 km into the recorded legs you reach Galena Summit. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Stanley Idaho, mostly downhill.

4. 4. Stanley Idaho

   Stanley is a tiny town of a hundred or so people at about sixty-two hundred feet in the Sawtooth Valley of central Idaho, and it is one of the best-situated villages in the American West. The jagged granite wall of the Sawtooth Range stands directly behind it, tall and sharp, with snow in most months, while the infant Salmon River, the River of No Return, runs past the edge of the town. There are log buildings, a few lodges and cafes, a rodeo ground, and a sky so clear that the whole range seems to hang in the air.

   Read the complete Stanley Idaho write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Stanley Idaho closes the day.