Looking for Fall Colors in Idaho

[firedude67]

The wife and I had some time off from work so decided to get out of the rat-race and head to the hills. Looking to enjoy the fall colors and cooler temps. We went East of Idaho City up Pine Creek. Lots of pine but some Aspen turning some beautiful colors.
This is the view driving up.

And some Aspen.

This was our camp site. The truck in the background is of some hunters. Cow season. Another reason we wanted to get up there before general season starts on the 10th.

[firedude67]

We also drove up to Thorn Creek Look Out this morning. Actual I drove and my wife ran the road with the younger dog.

Views from the LO.

[shenrie]

very nice. sadly the fall colors are better in the city due to the variety of trees, but id still rather get out in the sticks anyday

never been all the way to thorn creek. weve always ran into snow and had to turn around. view looks great though...just like the pbs logo, lol. need to get up there and see it for ourselves. thanks for sharing

we camped up past rabbit creek on the nf a couple of weeks ago and it was great for colors, especially around barber flats. we were up near jackson peak lookout 2 weeks prior to that and the aspens were already changing. that would have been around 9/12.

if your looking for colors, you generally have to get to at least lowman on 21. after that, theres quite a few more aspens to liven the colors up. we did a trip on the weekend of the 19th up 21 to stanley, took a right to ketchum, then planned on taking fire road 227 from ketchum to featherville and out through castlerock to 26. well 227 is closed 15 miles out of featherville and they dont plan on opening it back up this year. was pissed that the road closed sign was 4 miles before the close in the middle of now where, but happy the forest service was so lazy, cause we never would have seen the spawn happening if the road closed sign was in a more considerate location.

as we were driving, the wife kept saying, what those red spots in the river? i assumed they were leaves...then all of a sudden she screamed, those are fish, STOP!!! we stopped and watched these 35-40 fish do their thing. was pretty neat. neither of us had ever seen a spawn firsthand. as i had always been told, when they are doing their thing, they care not. one pair let her get within 2' of them. she was taking pix straight down from on top (she hasnt allowed me to see those yet ).


if your familiar with the sf of the boise, you know you dont see it backed up like this. this is just in front of the blowout thats blocking the river and creating a lake...thus blocking the road. most of the sf is like the above pic with the fish prior to anderson ranch dam.


not much, but you can see some color. if you look closely, you can see the origins of the salmon river. this pic is taken from galena summit.


again, not much fall color other than ground level weeds and such, but was too good of a pic not to share.


september is a great time for this loop. we ran into very few people. most campgrounds were 90% unoccupied. the real fall colors were between galena summit and ketchum. again, the wife hasnt sent me those pix yet ill share when/if i see them.