Sawtooth Mountains

We left Arco, where we had stayed during our visit to Craters of the Moon, and took a drive through the Sawtooth Mountains.

We turned north at Stanton Crossing and headed into the mountains.

We crossed Galena Summit and entered the Salmon River watershed. So called because salmon swim over 1000 miles from the mouth of the Columbia River to spawn in Redfish lake at 6500 ft elevation.

There were fires in the area and smoke could be seen on the horizon.

We left the Salmon River at Stanley and headed toward Lowman. Signs of past fires were everywhere.

We stayed a couple nights in Lowman.  We were far enough from the fires that it didn't bother us, there was just a faint smoke smell in the morning.

The drive from Lowman to Boise went through a lot of recently burned area.

We finally descended to the point where we were in the flood basalt of the Snake River Valley again.  That meant we were almost in Boise.