After we left Summit County, we headed up to the Sawtooths in Idaho. A few years back, we were able to spend a couple nights in the area on a road trip in our van. Of course, two days is never enough to explore so this time we planned on spending a few weeks in the area.
We initially booked a site at the North Fork campground north of Ketchum, but decided to look at a first-come, first-served site just east of Sun Valley. It ended up working out – we got a beautiful site where we could see the ski runs on Sun Valley Ski Resort!

While there is some biking in the area, I’d say the main attraction is hiking for us here. Unfortunately, Andrea had a busy week with work, but we still managed to have some fun. The next few pictures are from small hikes/rides directly from camp.



Just up the road from our campsite was the Pioneer Cabin Trail. Predictably, it leads to a cabin which was built in 1938 for/by a ski club in Sun Valley. We are familiar with cabins/huts like this in Colorado, known as the 10th Mountain Division huts. You can book them year-round for stays in the mountains. They are often remote, without roads leading to them, and mostly maintained by volunteers.




This hike was “strenuous”, over 2500ft of elevation gain in less than 4 miles (one way) topping out at around 9500′ above sea level, but the views were definitely worth it. The sawtooths are absolutely spectacular, but they don’t reveal their true beauty unless you are willing to put in the work. You just can’t see these views from the road.







Later in the week, we went for a hike on the Norton-Big Lost Lakes Loop. It’s a little ways north of Ketchum and just a spectacular hike that brings you by 4 alpine lakes. It was 5 miles RT, and ~1600ft elevation gain total. There was maybe 7 miles of gravel road to get to the trailhead, and I have to say, Idaho knows how to maintain gravel roads. Compared to Colorado, it was basically a highway. This trend continued throughout our weeks in Idaho.

















After our stay in Sun Valley, we headed north about an hour to the Stanley area. Stay tuned for that post coming soon.
-Kyle