On the way back down from the mountain forests of Sawtooth, the peaks gradually lose height, the trees thin out and the landscape starts flattening back to plains and rolling hills. A little real map planning had a small road, ID46 leaping out at me to link back to the US20 East. Halfway down the road, out of the corner of my eye I saw a tiny sign for 'City of Rocks Road' pointing off to a winding track to the West. Game on.
Five miles of winding drive into the sunset found me in the middle of (apparently) one of America's finest hunting grounds for Mule Deer. As the sun set and I played with my shadow, I found a spot to park up for the night opposite a almost concealed track in the sagebrush. In the fading light I could make out a small farmstead away in the Mormon Reservoir valley about another 5 miles away. Some quick sums meant I was in the middle of a 100 square miles of nothing. Just me and, as the sun vanished completely, several million stars overhead.
With morning and better light, the views were superb:
