STANLEY, Idaho — The Aurora Borealis dazzled on Tuesday and Wednesday as this phenomenon could be seen throughout Idaho. For the occasion, I made a special trip up to Stanley to view the northern lights at Red Fish Lake.
"It is just a wonderful, awe-inspiring kind of moment when you get to see the pillars of light come up and dance across the sky," said Sid Gauby, who I met at the lake as he made the trip up from Boise with his wife. "It's a beautiful night, and what a place to see the northern lights."
Check out the video to see more of the northern lights —
The Aurora Borealis happens when solar particles collide with the Earth's atmosphere after solar winds or coronal mass ejections from the sun. These energy particles get deflected by the Earth's magnetic field, directing them towards the poles, and that's why they are called the northern lights.
"What better way to experience creation than to see something you can’t control, and it is just amazing to be a part of it," said Gauby.
I decided to go up to Stanley because it's in the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve. This area encompasses nearly one million acres in several different Idaho counties. It became the first reserve in the United States to earn a gold star recognition from the International Dark Sky Reserve in 2017.
In an era where it has gotten more difficult to view the stars communities like Stanley and Sun Valley have made conscious decisions to limit light pollution and it made a perfect setting to check out the Aurora Borealis. Gauby was surprised there weren't more people up in the Stanley area checking out the northern lights.
"It just amazes me when people get the chance they don’t take it," said Gauby, who caught the Aurora Borealis in Sun Valley on Tuesday and at Red Fish Lake on Wednesday. "Once you have seen them, it is unlike anything else."
In fact, it amazed me to see no people at Red Fish Lake earlier. I enjoyed the solitude of the Sawtooths in a rare opportunity to explore the area in November before the region gets blanketed with snow.
