Salmon River Canyon. A View North, Back Towards White Bird, Showing Gradual Descent to the River.
“…. flowing between high canyon walls.“(Cont.Next)
North end of Huge Parking Lot for Roadside Rest Area and a nice Sandy River Beach, Salmon River Gorge, ID. Note boulders that are volcanic rock. These surely came out of similar appearing rock seen at road cut in canyon wall at right. We are now four miles South of White Bird. After the bridge shown in the previous photo, U.S. Rt95 went up and over a small mountain range. After this, the highway took a steady down grade to practically the level of the river. The new highway has been relatively straight, with its steady, reasonable grade down, ever since the Grangerville Plateau. Clearly, it is much safer and more amenable to high speed traffic than the 20 switchbacks on Whitebird Hill!! But how did Idaho find the money for the very high bridge plus expensive road relocation to make the newer, wide, straight modern superhighway? How could this be justified in this remote, arid, lowly populated region? A quick look at your Idaho map will show the answer. This is only road between the widely separate, but clearly well populated Northern and Southern regions of Idaho. Moreover the only other North-South road corridors are 120 miles to the East, and even farther to the West. Why is this so? More map study will show the major (and long) North-South mountain barriers both East and West of Rt95. In addition, the deep precipitous Salmon River Gorge, combined with the Snake River (Hells Canyon) to the West, are together additional North-South barriers to road construction. (These rivers after all, are just following the North-South Mountain folds generally true of the West.) So, do you get the point? Roads respond to Geology, and Geography. The fast and heavy traffic on this road both justify and make good use of this highway in its modern form.
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(Photo = 111-1142c ...... ZMM Page = 260 ...... WayPt = 285w 1579ft)