Pictures of us heading down the back side of the pass.
These mountains had already begun their transition from summer to winter, even early in October and they were beautiful.
Mountains around every bend and curve in the road..............
Although we primarily stayed on the main trail all the way across the pass, occasionally we veered off a short way if something interesting caught our attention.
It's funny to my friends back in Tennessee - a place that is covered so much with wonderful forest land - but when you live in the high desert plains environment of Wyoming and this portion of Idaho, trees instantly get your attention.
There were trees in the mountains around us, but on this day, late in the day, we still had no idea how much further we had to travel in order to complete this drive.
We had left the restaurant hours earlier intending only to go see what the Natural Bridge was all about.
The drive up and over Arco Pass was a completely spur of the moment maneuver performed starting in early afternoon.
By this time it was late afternoon and if we were going to get out of there before dark we needed to keep moving.............
We found these trees unexpectedly adjacent to the road we were traveling, and where there are trees there is also water.
Curious to see what we had found, LC turned off the main dirt road and slowly drove down a secondary trail.
There was no burgeoning mountain stream to be found. Only a deep washout that created a trickle of a stream.
Enough water to maintain trees and in early fall they were a beautiful combination of varying shades of green.............
I did a quick and cursory on-line search to see if I could find more information on Arco Pass but found little that I could cut and paste into this blog.
There's some pictures.
Information informing the reader that this is a favorite trip for 4-wheelers.
Not much else.
The things that stood out for me during the trip across the mountain pass were:
1. On this Saturday in early October we were the only explorers on the pass
2. The map at the crest of the pass clearly showed us that although we had been on the pass for a few hours, we had only explored a very small section of the Salmon-Challis National Forest. There was SO much more to see.
3. The ruggedness of the mountain ranges, the endless expanses of open space, the pine trees that followed the off-shoot trails and that almost compelled you into the deep canyons of individual mountains
4. The knowledge that bears, wolves, antelope, deer and more roamed freely through this area, although we saw only antelope on this particular trip
5. The volcanic rock formations that were more rugged than the twisted and tortured shapes of so much of the rock in Wyoming
6. The complete similarity of this place to so many dirt trails that we had explored while living in Wyoming...........
Standing in the bed of the truck and still taking pictures of the tiny stream that was feeding the trees.............
Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.............Jeffrey Lasley
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