Stanley 2024

Trip #51

The area around Stanley, Idaho and the Sawtooth Mountains is one of our favorite places to visit and was the main focus of this 1800 mile, 21 day trip.

Along the way we camped in seven campgrounds, kayaked in four lakes and a river, and visited ten Oregon Counties and ten Idaho Counties.

While visiting Shawna’s Uncle Bob in Idaho, we took a side trip to the ghost town of Silver City. According to the map (and Uncle Bob) there is a “road” to the town. I have seen better maintained goat trails, but it was worth the 200 mile detour. You can approach from Murphy, Idaho or Jordan Valley, Oregon. Either way, the last 10-15 miles is one continuous pothole.

We spent six nights at Sunny Gulch Campground near Stanley. This is a well kept NFS camp in the Sawtooth National Forest. They have potable water and a very clean vault toilet but no electric. There is a dump station near the Ranger Station across the road that was closed during our visit.

This stay gave us a chance to fully test our new Epoch lithium battery. I ran the generator once for two hours in the middle of this stop, but I didn’t really need to. In six days we used about half of the battery. With the quick recharge, we were able to drive away with about a 63% charge left.

Another highlight of the trip was our two day stay at Ponderosa State Park near McCall, Idaho. Despite paying double the rate because we were not Idahoans, we enjoyed our time here. The park is close to the resort town of McCall and is right on Payette Lake. At the north end of the lake is the slack water north fork of the Payette River. We were able to paddle up stream 2-3 miles then enjoy the float back down. Along the way we saw a moose.

Enjoy the photos.