Idaho Sawtooth Massacre

Actually, the Sawtooths were pretty cool--though can you believe we went back to Idaho??? The human was considering a number of options (including going back up to Mt Baker), but, in the end, decided we should move on to new territories. He has always wanted to see Sun Valley, so that's where we went--though the real target was the Sawtooth National Forest. First, let us say that we can imagine the Sawtooths would be ultra-spectacular in the winter--they weren't bad in July. However, the number of people there was daunting, to say the least. The heat was manageable (especially since the evenings were totally cool), but the crowds were--we suspect--typical, huge summer crowds. Not our scene. Or our human's.

Case in point: we had thought to play around Redfish Lake--there's a dog beach there--then camp at one of the numerous Redfish campgrounds for the night. Well, we couldn't find the dog beach (even though we were told there would be obvious signage). We may have had better luck on paw, but, unfortunately, we couldn't find any place to park! Yes, indeed. So, we thought we should just grab a campsite, and let the human find the dog beach. Guess what? Not all the campgrounds were full, but most were. And, really, would you want to grab the one or two sites left (which clearly were the least appealing)? To make a long story short, we blew off Redfish Lake to find a little solitude and quiet. We wound up at the Iron Creek campground (just west of Stanley) which ended up being super. The next morning, we left the Sawtooths behind.

On a side note, we'd like to add that we're not really resort types, so Sun Valley and Ketchum were total eye openers for us. Places like Whitefish and Bigfork come perilously close, but this place was like no other (though we haven't seen Aspen or Palm Springs). This place revolved around the golf course and, we imagine, even more so around the slopes come winter time. Also, for a little town in the wilds of Idaho, Ketchum hosts quite a bit of conspicuous consumption. Was there a beemer convention in town? And, wow, we didn't even get a chance to visit the Sotheby's real estate office...