Today was going to be a long day. How long we had no idea. We knew there was a road that was closed somewhere west of Ketchum and we knew how to get around it but we had no idea how long it would take. We hit the gravel before first light being in a deep canyon for awhile. Even though we were in the National Forest there were still some really nice houses along the road. After awhile they all disappeared and it was just us, the road and the mountains.
What we didn’t know was that we had a 9100′ mountain pass to negotiate this morning. The road going up was steep, narrow and winding. By the time we made it down off the mountain and to our detour it was starting to warm up. The road ahead will apparently be closed for several years due to constant mud slides as a result of a forest fire 4 years ago. The loss of the trees has caused to soil to become unstable. We found our detour and headed off the mountain to Fairfield, ID on hwy 20. From there we had to travel west about 27 miles and then north to Featherville.
Next after Featherville was Rocky Bar and then Idaho City where I paid $3.39 for fuel. From there it was an easy hop over the mountain and down into the Ontario, OR area. This is just over the state line.
Tomorrow we will head for John Day, OR.
FJ Meets the TAT 