The Lightning Ridge trail is a 13.5 mile ride between Deadwood Reservoir and Forest Service road NF-611 (Lightning ridge road) in Garden valley.  Linda Hays and I rode some of this trail from the west, Garden Valley end.  The one lane road to the trail head is in very good shape, and the parking for trailers is limited, so this is not a good chapter ride.  But for small groups, of not more then maybe 4 trailers this trail offers one of Idaho’s best ridge rides.  This is not a ride for people or horses that don’t like to climb and are not comfortable riding on a hill side, as this trail has both.  It also has some wonderful granite rock formations and great views of Scott Mountain, Onion Valley, Garden Valley and the surrounding mountains.  During our ride the wild flowers were doing their best to cover the hillsides.  The west end of this trail is dry, not crossing any streams and the section we rode did not have a lot of shade.  On our trail scale of 1 to 5 with one being a flat dirt road and 5 being OMG, this is a 3.5