The Sawtooths and the Salmon: Ketchum to Salmon

The Route at a Glance

This drive crosses one divide and then lets a river lead the rest of the way. From Ketchum, SR-75 runs up the Big Wood River and climbs to Galena Summit, where the Salmon begins as a creek in the meadows below and the Sawtooths stand up across the valley. From there the road never leaves the water. It follows the young Salmon north through the Sawtooth Valley to Stanley, turns east with it, and stays beside it for most of the next hundred and fifty miles.

Below Stanley the valley closes into a canyon of granite and pine. At Sunbeam a gravel road runs eight miles up the Yankee Fork to the gold dredge and the cobble ridges it left behind, past the old camps of Bonanza and Custer. Back on the highway the canyon opens out toward Challis, a ranch town where the state park's interpretive center tells the Yankee Fork story. About thirty miles south of Challis on US-93, a detour off this route, the Borah Peak fault scarp shows where the ground broke in 1983.

North of Challis, US-93 carries on down the Salmon through ranch bottoms under the Lemhi Range to the town of Salmon, where the Lemhi comes in and the river runs on north before it turns west across the state. The Sacajawea Center is at the east edge of town, in the valley where she was born. From Salmon, SR-28 runs up the Lemhi to Tendoy and the gravel road to Lemhi Pass, the divide Lewis crossed in August 1805.

Services are few between Stanley and Challis, and the Galena grade can hold snow into June. Drive it north for the sequence the river gives you.

The Drive, Stop by Stop

3 stops along the route, in driving order from Ketchum, Idaho to Salmon, Idaho. One of them sits off the road itself — the distance is noted on each.

1. 1

   Galena Summit Overlook

   Stanley

   The Bethine and Frank Church Overlook, just past the summit on the Salmon side.

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2. 2

   Yankee Fork Gold Dredge

   Stanley

   7.3 miles off the route

   A detour: eight miles of gravel up Yankee Fork Road from Sunbeam; tours in summer.

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3. 3

   Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural and Educational Center

   Salmon

   At the east edge of Salmon, on SR-28 along the Lemhi River.

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That's the drive. Take your time, pull over often, and let The Sawtooths and the Salmon: Ketchum to Salmon do what it does best.