Heading out of my yurt at the River’s Fork Lodge (after waiting for the day to warm up with a breakfast burrito and coffee), I gassed up and headed straight into the Salmon-Challis National Forest around 9:30. The forest service road follows the Salmon River for few miles with sheer cliff faces boxing in the narrow river valley, but eventually the cliff walls opened up and there as a pass into the mountains.
The road was well groomed gravel with the occasional deep spot and corrugations on the hills. After a a couple miles of slow warm-up, the road rose up the mountain faces with a series of steep switchbacks and staggering views of the Salmon River and surrounding valleys.
Once the road reached the summit, it following a ridge line north from peak to peak. Each summit revealed more mountains and an increasing amount of wild fire damage. When I stopped for a drink and to take off my mid-layers, a local ATV rider and his very floofy German Shepherd stopped by to check on me and give me some pointers on local landmarks and history.
Eventually the road descended back down to pavement when it hits the Bitteroot River’s West Fork and Painted Rock Lake. The pavement stayed interesting and twisty until it crossed back over the Montana border, where it the road became a 4-lane artery through several large towns along the border.
After the town of Lolo, I picked up my first section of the Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route. The route started off pretty easy, with tall pine trees lining the road as it slowly meandered back into the mountains. You could have told me I was in Vermont, New Hampshire, or northern Maine and I wouldn’t have known otherwise except for the occasional glimpse of snow-capped mountains in between the trees.
The road progressively got more interesting and the views got better as it ascended further into the mountains, eventually becoming a fairly primitive dirt track with very little shoulder separating the road from sheer drops.
After a few hours on the BDR I hit US12 in Idaho and then arrived at the Lochsa Lodge where I’d rented a cabin for the night. The lodge offered one of the better menus I’ve seen since crossing the Mississippi (it was nice to have a fresh vegetable with dinner and fruit with breakfast). The screened-in porch made a great place to freshen up some of my baselayers and air out my gear from the previous night in Yellowstone.
It was surprising to find out while here that ID is separated into Mountain and Pacific time horizontally. The lodge was just south of the demarcation line and was in Mountain Time, but the nearest cell tower (and hence my phone, watch, etc.) were already in Pacific time.
