Ketchum, Idaho

Approaching Ketchum from the South

We toodled around on our bikes on the Wood River Trail System over two beautiful days this week; the paved paths connect Bellevue (elevation 5200') and Ketchum (elevation 6000') with a 15-mile, north-south, rail-to-trail run paralleling highway 75.  They also go two miles farther up the Wood River beyond Ketchum and branch east and west from Ketchum: west beside Warm Springs Road, east on the 6-mile Elkhorn/Sun Valley loop, and a ways farther east past Sun Valley beside Trail Creek Road. 

Ritzau Park, between Hailey and Ketchum

The Wood River stretch has plentiful benches and some water fountains, restrooms, shady sections, and river access points.

Between the Golf Course and Elkhorn Road

The Elkhorn/Sun Valley Loop winds through neighborhoods and golf courses. 

The beautiful Hemingway Memorial is just off the Trail Creek Road path.   Above the East Fork valley, its column stands with a sculpted head of Hemingway and a plaque with words excerpted and edited from a eulogy he gave in 1939 for a friend in Ketchum:

 


"Best of all he loved the fall 
the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods
leaves floating on the trout streams
and above the hills
     the high blue windless skies.
Now he will be a part of them forever."
     Ernest Hemingway --  Idaho -- 1939

 

Behold!

At Galena Summit (9000') on the way home, we  stopped for a short hike on the Titus Lake trail--quintessentially Sawtoothy with its balsamroot, paintbrush, forget-me-nots, little creeks to hop over, and snow patches to cross.