July 10 - 11, 2020:
It’s only about 60 miles from Stanley to Challis, Idaho, all on route 75 along the shores of the Salmon River. It’s a narrow road with many curves, quite a lot of traffic, extremely scenic and a challenge to keep your eyes on the road. There are several historical and scenic overlook stops along the route and as usual I stop at most. I noticed after a couple of stops this young woman who was doing about the same thing as I do and after about 4-5 such stops, she looked at me, smiled and said; Are you following me or am I following you ? She was from California, was amazed at the scenery, loved it and then jumped back in her pickup truck and left me, actually I was wanting know more about her, I think there was a story to be told.
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| Idaho seems to have a scenic Byway everywhere |
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| Which are really beautiful |
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| Everywhere |
After a while, I grew tired and drove the last 20 miles without stopping thinking I could return latter. About 13 miles from Challis, I pull into a BLM Campground overlooking the Salmon River that is very nice and free, that will be my stop for the night.
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The name derives from a prospector who drowned trying to cross
the Salmon River here |
In the morning, it’s into Challis where I treat myself to breakfast with a group of locals. a real hearty breakfast. I then explore the downtown and take a few photos in the good morning light. Challis is a very nice small town, many of the old buildings remain, a nice school, a library, a museum and a sense of community exists, not like the tourist trap back in Stanley. On main street my attention is immediately focused on a great bar sign, Bux's Place, and my photographic memory tells me that I have taken a photo of it before, Twinkles and I came through here on one of our trips.
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| A nice old western town |
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| Giant wide Mormon-like streets |
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| Attractive school building |
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| The streets are empty |
My focus for the day is to drive this crazy backwoods mountain road known as the Custer Motorway from Challis to Custer which was a bustling mining town in it’s day, which became a ghost town, now a state park. This road was used back in the day to transport ore and supplies between Custer and Challis, it’s hard to believe that this was the best way. It’s about a 30 miles dirt road, the first half of which I see no other vehicles. I’m starting to wonder if this road is open all the way or is there sometime I don’t know ? I then pass a truck carrying a load of fire wood where there is barely room to pass. The road goes steeply uphill over a pass and it is totally mountainous, no one is here and I hope the van keeps going. By the way, I am beating this van terribly on these back roads, I’m quite surprised parts are not vibrating off it by now. There are a few interesting roadside history stop such as the site of the toll gate, the team changing station, etc, where I stop to ponder how did those pioneer spirits accomplish this stuff, they were crazy people. As I start going downhill, closer to the actual Custer town site, vehicle and people start showing and there are some beautiful campgrounds along these pristine clean fishing streams. This is God’s country for the fishing obsessed and I wonder what is wrong with me, why am I not fishing.
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| A lone uphill winding road |
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| It was a toll road |
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| Not a smooth quick trip |
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| A few timbers remain from the station |
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| Beautiful wildflowers in bloom |
Eventually I come to the town site of Custer where a sizable crowd of tourists are assembled. This was once an important place and several old buildings and remnants of the mining business remain. I heard a docent explain to a group how when the mining stopped, everyone sort of picked up and left town, taking what they could and leaving the rest behind. Nobody was much interested in any of it until the 1960’s when people started to collect the stuff. There was a local man who was despondent over the death of his son and sort of took it upon himself to save some of the stuff in the town before it was all gone. He did so and eventually donated it all to enable this ghost town to have some history left to show.
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| A clear mountain stream |
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| Driving through a flat forested area |
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| Another beautiful wildflower |
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| The Empire Saloon was saved |
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| Several original cabins remain |
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| Lots of mining equipment left behind |
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| Old newspapers used for insulation under the wall covering |
The other interesting attraction is the Yankee Fort Dredge a mile or so away, another amazing story. It was determined that after the mining was finished that much ore still remained deeper underground. The mining interests bought a huge Dredge from the Bucyrus-Erie Company , had it transported here in pieces, and reassembled on site. They then flooded this valley to enable the Dredge to float and it then it dug trenches up to about 30 foot deep, the rocks and dirt were sorted inside the Dredge, the good stuff saved and the waste dumped out the back. They claim to have made it profitable, over a million dollars so.
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| The Yankee Fort Dredge, hard to believe that this floated around here |
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| Miles of discarded rock from the dredged areas |
Back in Challis it’s happy hour, I am venture into the Bux's Place. It is weird, most of the patrons being near my age, with scraggly beards, a mix long and short hair types, western attire and looking much like old hippies or old prospectors. The bar was decently clean, surprising, decorated mainly with dead deer mounts along the walls and interesting Idaho, scenic mountain murals. A very nice old bar back that looks original, a couple of pool tables, it’s a real old neighborhood hangout, a dying breed in our uppity brew pub culture these days, I like it.
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| The inside decor |
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| Great sign, makes me thirty for a cold one |
My final tourist site was a ride to the ghost town of Bayhorse which is a four mile scenic dirt road a few miles from Challis. It’s a beautiful drive up into a mountainous area where the Beardsley and Bayhorse Creeks merge. This was a prosperous Silver and Copper mining town started in the 1880’s. The story goes that prospectors met a man with two gray horses who told them of rich mining ground, hence the origin of the towns name. This town site was not open to the public until 2006 when it became part of the Idaho State Park System. It is a very well developed site now with a good self guide tour map with interpretive signs along the way. The Mill building in particular is very impressive and still in reasonable condition.
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| A few buildings are still looking sound |
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| Beautiful stone work |
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| Massive Mill building |
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| A few collector car parts lying around |
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| The Stamp Mill remains |
Back in Challis, there is a Farmers Market, well organized at the town park with very friendly happy vendors, typical for Farmers Markets. A nice older woman greeted me and I ended up with a bag of possibly the best oatmeal cookies ever. OK, Challis was a pretty cool stop.
Almost forgot, I find a pretty cool junkyard outside of town that has a number of old Hudson Hornets.
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| Body looks nice, very restorable condition |
On that positive note, I fueled with, (with a pump attendant to clean my windshield) and departed north for Salmon, Idaho.
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