After a late afternoon and early evening shoot on Friday on the upper-end of the Wood River drainage and the headwaters of the Salmon River – just below Galena Pass, I headed to our cabin located just west of Stanley in the Goat Creek drainage.
Technically in the Stanley City Limits (population 63) our cabin is on Goat Creek and completely surrounded by the SNRA and Sawtooth Wilderness. While a real log cabin,we are on the grid with power, telephone, and high speed cable. We have an easement agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to the property. A small group of property owners pays to keep the Forest Service Access Road (Iron Creek Road) plowed in the winter. So we have year-round access. The Lübeck’s use the cabin year-round.
The Forest Service keeps a few of the major drainage’s in the region trail-less and without a trail-head. Goat Creek in one of them. Direct access is allowed if it is not through private property – but you are on your own. That is unless you own the private property adjoining the SNRA and Sawtooth Wilderness.
Goat Lake, Goat Falls and Upper Goat Creek are accessible to the public via another route. That is the Alpine Way trail from the Iron Creek Trail-head a few miles west of the cabin. It adds a significant number of miles to the adventure.
On this day (Sunday) my neighbor friend Doug, his dog Lucy, and I decide we will meander up Goat Creek from our respective cabins to an overlook of Goat Falls and take in the last colors of the season. The trip to the overlook and back is six miles. Meandering on the creek adds some distance.
