This is a sponsored post. When I first set foot on the Little Boulder Trail, en route to what I was convinced would be an alpine paradise, I must admit I was somewhat skeptical. The long, narrow, winding road we’d taken from the highway near Stanley to the trailhead had wended its way through an arid, dusty valley dotted with artificially irrigated farms—islands of verdant green amid an otherwise tawny hillscape--with nary a sight of a snowcapped peak or alpine lake. But I had faith that, as usual, Idaho would deliver the goods and we began the steep ascent into the foothills, flanked by head-high sagebrush and the occasional ponderosa pine.