Central Idaho: Boise, Stanley, Challis, River of No Return, Pocatello, Craters of the Moon, Sawtooth, Oregon Trail

Travel Adventures

By: Genevieve Rowles

Narrated by: Kay Nazarchyk

Right in the center of Idaho is the 2.3 million acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. Central Idaho offers the Gem State's most exciting, most literally down-to-earth, splash-and-dash adventures. The two big rivers running through it, the Salmon and the Middle Fork of the Salmon, attract adventurers from the world over. Ketchum/Sun Valley, Idaho's oh-so-trendy resort area, and the North Fork Road, an on-the-edge throwback to times past, point up the contrasts you will find here.

Another brand of tourism drives the Wood River Valley, where Ketchum and the Sun Valley Ski Resort hold sway. This huge chunk of Rocky Mountain splendor is an enormous, tantalizing saddlebag crammed with surprises. Its stunning beauty will emblazon unforgettable images on your memory; its quiet beauty will steal into your soul. This is the ancestral home of the Lemhi Shoshone, Sheepeater, and Nez Perce Indian tribes. These people took sustenance from the land on which they lived and from the rivers running through it, in return treating the land with thankful reverence. Today, the Nez Perce occupy a reservation on the Camas Prairie. Between 15,000 and 2,000 years ago, the area between the northeastern edge of the Snake River Plain and the thrusting Sawtooth Mountain Range experienced a series of earthshaking volcanic eruptions. Lava seeping from fissures flowed south to the Snake River Canyon, creating a weird landscape comprised of layer upon layer of cooling lava. The heart of this volcanic jumble has been preserved as The Craters of the Moon National Monument. The deep volcanic ash layering the Snake River Plain is today's fertile soil.

Idaho 75 slices southward through the lovely Sawtooth Valley. Granite snow-frosted peaks, stretching over 10,000 feet to grab the azure Idaho sky, march in jagged procession on the west. This guide has all the details you need to know for a visit to Central Idaho - the hotels, the restaurants, what to see, and more.

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