The days are getting shorter and cooler so we decided to explore the roads around Silver City, Idaho on our ATV. Of course we would be keeping one eye on the scenery and one eye on the road cuts for cool rocks. It was and crystal clear day with warm temperatures and not much wind.
The Video: 6 Minutes Through the Silver City Mountains of Idaho
6 minute video….
Getting There from Mountain Home
Head south out of Mountain Home on Airbase Road. Go southwest on Highway 67 towards the town of Grand View. Head west at the intersection of Highway 67 and 78. Once on Highway 78 you travel about 26 miles were you turn left or south on the paved Silver City Road. This road is paved for about 7.4 miles when it turns into a good gravel road. We parked our truck were Silver City Road intersect the North Fork of Sinker Creek giving you about 4 miles of gravel road driving.
Heading up to New York Summit and Over
We unloaded the ATV (Coordinates: 43.065333, -116.634173) and headed west on Silver City Road. This gravel road heads steadily up to the New York Summit at about 6,700 feet or about 2,900 foot elevation gain in 7 miles. This road, while bumpy can easily be made by a normal passenger vehicle.
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| From Silver City Idaho Atv trip in Sept 2011 |
The road follows the now mostly dry Scotch Bob Creek for the 1st 4 miles of this ride. The vegetation gradually changes from the typical mountainous desert landscape to mountain pines on this 3,000 foot climb. And the Snake River Plains views dramatically open up to the northeast-southeast as you near the summit. Not a thing you’ll want to miss and maybe a good reason to head up to this area.
The road from the summit down to the outskirts of Silver City has some fine views of Florida Mountain and into the Jordan Creek Valley. This portion of the road is a little steeper and much rougher but still passenger car capable into the town of Silver City.
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| From Silver City Idaho Atv trip in Sept 2011 |
Following Jordan Creek to the West
We chose not to head south into the town but instead headed west-north-west along the road that follows Jordan Creek. This road is quite a bit narrower and rough and I’d say a 4-wheel drive would be better along this section but still passable in a normal car.
There are wonderful places to pull well off this gravel road down to nice flat camping areas along the creek. We rode down into one area that I suspect you couldn’t negotiate in anything other than a 4-wheel drive or ATV. And it was here that we had our picnic lunch and enjoyed walking along the creek.
Almost every place we stopped along the creek we saw fish in the larger pools. Most places the creek is only about 5-15 feet wide and rarely deeper than 3-4 feet. This is cattle country so expect to see cow patties along the road and right down to the creek bed.
We only traveled 4.2 miles along the Jordan Creek Road before turning around. But it seemed like we went much further. The first 2 miles were typical sagebrush, many pines and big areas of rocks. There’s lots of quartz in them, there rocks along this section. Might be well worth rock hounding that section.
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| From Silver City Idaho Atv trip in Sept 2011 |
But after about 2-2.5 miles the geography/geology changes rapidly to a “lava” and high desert surroundings. Much like riding around the area north of Mountain Home. As the valley widens out some in this section, there were lots of campers (hunters) taking advantage of some of the nicer spots along the creek.
Rock Hounding This Trip
We didn’t find much of interest but the 2-3 miles section west of Silver City appears to be prime time for some good rock hounding. According to my information most of the land along both sides of Jordan Creek are public lands out to 43.039067, -116.763906. I don’t believe I saw any mining claim signs or posts. That may or may not be a telling indicator of what’s out there.
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| From Silver City Idaho Atv trip in Sept 2011 |
We had a Good Time
This trip was quite nice, it was relaxing and relatively uncrowded. If you’d like more info about this trip or have questions, let us know by making a comment.
