Snow-streaked peaks of the Sawtooth Range above a line of pines and a green meadow along Stanley Lake Creek — Fredlyfish4 / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Idaho · Region

The Sawtooths & the Salmon River

Agaidika Shoshone country on the upper Salmon — Lemhi Pass and Sacagawea's people, the River of No Return, Borah Peak, Stanley and the Sawtooths, Redfish Lake's sockeye, and Sun Valley.

5 places to explore

The Agaidika — the Salmon Eaters, the Lemhi Shoshone — lived in the Lemhi Valley and along the upper Salmon, and in August 1805 their leader Cameahwait met Meriwether Lewis near the Continental Divide and soon found his sister Sacagawea traveling with the expedition. The horses the Agaidika traded that month carried Lewis and Clark over the mountains. In 1875 the government set aside a hundred-square-mile reservation for them on the Lemhi River; in 1907 it took the reservation back and moved the people two hundred miles south to Fort Hall. The Lemhi Shoshone have contested that removal ever since.

The Salmon River, the River of No Return, cuts west from here through the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness, a roadless country larger than Delaware and Rhode Island together. US-93 follows the river from Salmon to Challis and on south past Borah Peak, at 12,662 feet the highest point in Idaho. Highway 75 follows it upstream to Stanley under the granite of the Sawtooths. Redfish Lake is named for the sockeye that turned it red each fall after swimming nine hundred miles from the Pacific and climbing sixty-five hundred feet. In 1992 one fish came back. Biologists named him Lonesome Larry, kept his line in a captive program, and the run has been rebuilt from a handful of fish.

Over Galena Summit lies the Wood River Valley — Ketchum, where Hemingway spent his last years and is buried, and Sun Valley, which the Union Pacific built in 1936 and fitted with the world's first chairlifts. South of it lies the Camas Prairie near Fairfield, where Bannock families from Fort Hall had always dug camas; the war of 1878 began on that prairie.

What to See in The Sawtooths & the Salmon River

5 places across the region, grouped by what they are.

Geology & Rock Formations

Borah Peak rising above tan foothills, the 1983 fault scarp a faint line along the base of the hills

Borah Peak Earthquake Fault Scarp

Mackay

In 1983 the valley floor dropped seven feet in a second, and a truckload of hunters dropped with it.

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Natural Areas

The Sawtooth Valley opening north from Galena Summit, with the Sawtooth Range along its western edge

Galena Summit Overlook

Stanley

The Salmon River's first miles, seen from an overlook named for the couple who helped keep a mine out of the view.

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Historic Sites

Lemhi Pass

Tendoy

Lewis walked up a Shoshone road looking for the Pacific and saw only more mountains.

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Towns & Gateways

A bent-willow frame beside a trail at the Sacajawea Center, with the Lemhi Valley and mountains beyond

Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural and Educational Center

Salmon

In the valley where she was born, a center that spells her name the way many of her people say it.

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Industry & Mining

Yankee Fork Gold Dredge

Stanley

A 988-ton floating gold dredge worked five miles of valley for twelve years, and spent more than it found.

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Scenic Drives through The Sawtooths & the Salmon River

Scenic Byway

The Sawtooths and the Salmon: Ketchum to Salmon

Over Galena Summit to the Salmon's headwaters, then down the river past Stanley, the Yankee Fork dredge and Challis to the town of Salmon.

177 mi · 4.5 hrs

Stories from The Sawtooths & the Salmon River

Nature

The Lake Named for a Fish

Redfish Lake's sockeye climb 6,500 feet over 900 miles to spawn. In 1992 one came home. What it took to bring them back

5 min read

The Sawtooths & the Salmon River rewards the unhurried. Pick a base, fan out, and let the country between the headline stops surprise you.

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