Stanley, Challis, Salmon and Mackey, Idaho Camping August 2026

The first place we ever camped in Idaho was the sleepy little town of Mackey.  Mackey is nestled among some magnificent mountains and has a wonderful reservoir full of trout along the Big Lost River just a couple miles north of town.  We were immediately in love with Idaho and our next stop that summer of 2018 was Swan Valley.  We had no idea that we would settle down in Swan Valley at that time.  The rest is history and we still very much enjoy returning to Mackey.  We have added Stanley, Challis and Salmon Idaho to our favorite camping, hiking and fishing spots.

This year we planned a camping loop starting in Galena, Idaho, which is 20 miles north of the world famous Sun Valley, Idaho.  We camped along and fished the Big Wood River below.  Gari & I have had the fun of saying during our coffee time, 'we are sipping our coffee on the banks of the Snake River.'  These few days we sipped along the banks of the Big Wood River.

The fishing at Galena on the Big Wood River was slow, but none the less very enjoyable to be down wading in the river.  I guess we waded a little more than a half a mile working downstream on the Big Wood over the two days we were there.  We caught fish everytime we went out, not always a lot, but at least one.  We caught a few smaller Rainbows there and a couple Brook Trout.

After a couple days, we continued north and pitched a second camp along the Alturas Lake Creek at Pettit Lake.  This creek was a little bit smaller, but we pretty much had it to ourselves.  This creek dumps into the Salmon River about 2 miles from where we camped.  There was a pretty steady traffic of campers going past us on their way up to the lake.  As the week headed toward the weekend the visitors steadily increased.  The last day we stayed there a group selected a campsite within 1,000 ft of us down by the creek.  We had fished downstream the first day.  The second day we decided to fish upstream.  I stepped into the creek at the bridge and started fishing downstream of the bridge and then pointed myself to start making my way upstream.  Gari says to me, "I don't think you want to go up that way..."  I looked up an saw what I thought was a old scrawny bear.  The face was salt and pepper  gray and it was skinny looking.  The thing was looking right at me about 500 ft away.  It kind of spooked me a little bit... then I realized it was a huge dog, probably a 150 pounder. Bear crisis averted!  The fishing wasn't as good as the Big Wood River, as we just caught a few Brook Trout.  It was a fun stop, but with the skinny bear incident, it was time to move on to Stanley, ID with ideas of fishing in the Salmon River. 

Below, Gari fishes along Valley Creek north of Stanley.

We love the morning view at our Stanley Lake campsite.

Our Stanley Lake campsite setup.

Getting ready for something.

Around Stanley, Idaho.

Gari found a trail riding outfit at Redfish Lake.  She found an all day trail ride up to a group of alpine lakes called Cabin Creek Lakes. The outfit required a minimum group of four, so we knew that we may not be able to get this particular ride since we only had the two of us.  We were hoping that someone else may already have it booked and we could ride along.  We called and it turned out that there was no truck available to pull the horse trailer over to the Cabin Creek Trailhead about 20 miles away from their corrals.  Instead they offered us an all day ride up to another alpine lake, Marshall Lake.  We jumped at that offer and signed on to the 9AM muster time at Redfish Lake Corrals.  The Redfish Lake area is spectacular.  Not so long ago there wasn't much there but wilderness, but now there has been quite the extensive government recreation development, and that place is popular!  We figured that we would be riding with a group for 15 to 20 people, which didn't excite us.  But we knew the scenery would be spectacular and that they said we could fish for an hour or so up at the lake.  That seemed like a good deal to us and thought maybe we would meet some cool people and make a new friend or two. 

We showed up at 8:30AM or so and soon figured out that it would just be Gari, myself and our guide Tia riding up to the lake.  We loved that!  Surprisingly, the crew was very happy that we were early and we were on the trail by about 8:50AM.  

The ride left right from the Redfish Lake Corrals and up we went with Tia leading the way, Gari right behind and me bringing up the rear.  We were all on mares.  Tia was on Nikki.  Tia is still training Nikki and said she was not ready for clients yet.  Nikki didn't like the horses behind getting too close, and Nikki got very anxious when we had to leave the trail.  Gari was on Fish, short for Redfish, named after the lake (Redfish Lake).  Fish was a nice red chestnut horse.  I was on Toddy.  Toddy did fine going up to the lake, although Toddy wanted to go faster than Fish and was often right in Fish's butt.  The scenery on the ride up to the lake was magnificent as anticipated.  The Sawtooth Mountains are among the most spectacular we have seen, although we are kind of partial to the Teton Mountains in our own backyard.  

 Hero shot with the Tooth's in the background; compliments Tia, fantastic young trail guide.

Documentation at Marshall Lake.  I would guess the lake was about 5 to 7 acres.  The water was crystal clear.  We could see the Brook Trout swimming around in there and I am sure they could see us too.

Tia provided us with a bag lunch each.  It had a nice turkey wrap sandwich, chips, some candy snacks and a couple homemade oatmeal raisin cookies.  Just perfect.  We were given about 2-1/2 hours to linger at the lake, I guess that we used about 1-1/2 hours between lunch and fishing.

We went all the way around the lake, access wasn't as easy as it looked!  We caught 5 or 6 nice and gorgeous Brookies.  They hit on the dry flies easy the first bite, but then after that they were on to us and we had to keep moving around the lake.

The puzzle stripes on the backs are just amazing.  These are certainly among the most beautiful Trout species.

On the way back to the corral, Toddy wanted to go faster.  Then Tia and Gari decided that Toddy & I should pass Fish and Gari and follow Tia & Nikki.  I thought how in the world am I going to keep Toddy from getting right up on Nikki?  Tia asked me to check Toddy up with the reins a bit, so I started to comply.  That's when Toddy really got a big attitude, started throwing her head and got the reins over to one side of her head a few times on me.  That's when Gari & Tia decided that Gari & I should switch horses.  We were not too far from the corral on the way back.  It was getting later in the afternoon and we were seeing more hikers.  We stopped right on the trail, had to adjust the stirrup lengths a bit for both Gari & I, hers up, mine down.  It took about 3 minutes to switch.  While we were doing the switch a group of older hikers came up on us.  Tia politely asked them to wait for just a minute.  I am sure this was out of safety for everyone, including the horses.  Nobody is going to profit from spooked horses.  Well, they weren't having it, especially one woman in the group; I guess she was a really important person, lol. Tia saw this, so asked them to at least all pass on one side of the horses.  We already knew they didn't take instructions well.  There was about six of them, three couples it appeared, and of course they surrounded the horses on all sides as they squeezed past on the narrow trail.  As they passed, the most obnoxious woman (probably didn't know what a woman is) says, 'I get it honey, I have horses.'  I thought, 'Obviously you don't get it nit wit!'  I said to the group as they decided they were going to rush past, 'we're just going to pass you again.'  They didn't care about any logic.  Really crappy attitudes on most of that group.  One or two of the men you could tell were badly hen pecked, didn't say a word.  That group really didn't make much difference to an otherwise magnificent day, it just reminded us of how happy we were that we didn't have to spend all day with them, 90 seconds was more than enough!

On the way back to the corral.   I'm still on Toddy and Gari is on Fish.  

I'm going to tell you, that trail ride up to Marshall Lake and then fishing for Brook Trout was an amazing experience for me!

Fishing right in town at Stanley, ID in the Salmon River.  We had gone into a shop that Tia recommended, said the owners were her 3rd grade teachers.  So we went in, supported the business, told them Tia sent us, and asked if we could access the river from their parking lot.  They were happy to oblige.  I hooked into a nice Rainbow right behind that big rock, pole is bent.

The net is in position... You can see how far from the rock the fish took me... on a 3 wt fly rod & line.

Well look at that, I landed that one.  I can tell you that I didn't land them all over the course of the near 3 weeks we fished.

Another nice Rainbow landed.

5 miles south of Stanley, near Redfish Lake.  Gari works the rocks.

Rainbow in the net for Gari!  Pretty fish.

We were just upstream in the Salmon River and this shot below is where Redfish Lake Creek dumps into the Salmon River.

A view from the bridge that crosses Redfish Lake Creek.

Stanley Museum 

Almost in town Stanley, Salmon River in the foreground.

We decided to head home and this is the awesome canyon that you go through just south of Challis, Idaho headed south to Mackey, Idaho on Rt 93.

We stopped over night at Mackey Reservoir to break up the 255 mile ride home from Stanley.  It was about 111 miles to our overnight spot below.  The little white speck is our camper Swan, parked on the banks of the Big Lost River just below the dam.  We like it there, not many people camp there; up on the lake is a different story.

We had a nice near full moon overnight at Mackey Reservoir.