Day trip on the Owyhee Scenic Byway

The country south of Boise kind of fascinates me and I read about the Owyhee scenic byway so we thought we would drive down and take a look at it. We didn't plan to make the entire 120 mile loop but it was a really nice fall day. We headed south on Hwy 95 to Jordan Valley, OR and turned east off the highway onto the scenic byway road. About 25 miles in we came across an active one room school with a couple of houses around which constitutes the town of Pleasant Valley. We crossed back into Idaho on Juniper Mountain road and came to a deep gorge cut by the North Fork of the Owyhee River. It's a pretty steep drop down into the gorge and there is a primitive BLM campground along the river where the road crosses. It was a pretty fall scene.

We had a picnic and hiked a little ways up and down the river. It was a nice day so we decided to keep going. We had to wait for a bunch of cattle trucks coming down the other side. They were bringing the cattle down to their winter range and the yearlings were headed for feedlots. Up on top of the other side we came to these 2-4 mile wide swales with scattered junipers and maybe a little seep of water running at the bottom. Now the first five were kind of interesting but the next 20 plus got boring. We did the entire 120 mile loop coming in south of Grand View and then 50 more miles home.

Crooked River and hot springs

We decided to get one more camping trip in this fall. We headed up Hwy 21 and planned to camp the 1st night at a private CG in Idaho City but it was a dump so we headed up over More's Creek Summit. It was a beautiful drive and we camped at Edna Creek CG, a forest service campground. Little Edna Creek rippled 10 ft from our camper. 23° that 1st night and the next morning I got a fire going and a couple of forest service guys stopped to warm up. They told us about a trail up Crooked River to a foot bridge about 3 miles up. Later that morning off we went.

Definitely going to come back and fish. Crooked River was just string of holding holes the entire hike.

We had a great hike. The weather was perfect mid-fall temps and sunny.

That afternoon we broke camp and headed down to Lowman on hwy 21. About 4-5 miles east on 21 is Kirkham hot springs campground. This CG is right off the highway and would be hot with a lot of traffic in the summer, but being a carefree OF we can go when it has cooled off and there are no people.

We sat in the warm pools that afternoon and again the next morning. It was definitely the right time for camping at Kirkham HS.
We broke camp and headed west on hwy 21 to Pine Flat CG. On the drive the road goes up on the cliffs over the river and the views down on the South Fork of the Payette are stunning. Pine Flat CG is off the hwy on the river side. It was really nice because there were no other campers.

It was a 1/4 mile hike down to the river where we found the coolest hot springs yet. Hot water cascaded off a cliff into a rocked up pool and then ran down to the river. One of the coolest places we have ever been.
Somebody needed to sit in the hot springs pool underneath the waterfall so I did.

On the way home on hwy 55 we went through Horseshoe Bend where Juan, Melissa's BIL, was coaching his Rimrock Raider HS football team against the Horseshoe Bend kids. We had a tailgate party where Carol, Hannah, Xavier, Seth, Melissa and Mae joined us for burgers and dogs before the game and Juan's Raiders won.

We had a great time. The entire trip was never more than 3 hours from our house. That was our last trip of the season and over the next week we winterized and stored the camper until next spring.

RV - the solution to cold camping

No more freezing tent camps for us. We bought a used 2006 Flagstaff 23FBS travel trailer. So now we bring all the comforts of home with us. Furnace, shower, queen bed, hot water, frig, lights, toilet; all the comforts of home.

We bought the must have equalizer trailer hitch and trailer brake controller and off we went to Warm Lake for our shake down and 1st camp. North on Hwy 55 then take Warm Lake road east at Cascade. Pavement all the way to a beautiful natural lake. We camped at Warm Lake Lodge CG which was nothing special but fine for our first expedition.

The second day there we found  really cool hot springs on the banks of the South Fork of the Salmon River. Multiple pools had been rocked around to hold 2-3' of water. Two pools had PVC pipes with valves to adjust hot and cold, really neat. We spent 3 hours there. Next day we found more hot springs to the west but much more primitive and too hot.

That night some neighbor campers gave us some fresh trout and we cooked a great dinner. Really pleased with our first RV trip, all our systems worked well and we were very comfortable. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Day trips and wildflowers

We finally thawed out from our tent camping expedition and decided to do a couple of day trips close to home. Bogus Basin ski area is only 45 minutes north of town. There are great views of the valley.

A few days later after studying the map we drove up to Blue Lake. We headed north on hwy 55, west on FR (forest service road) 17A, left on FR 446 and west on Snow Bank Mountain RD (isn't that a great name for a mtn rd) to Blue Lake.

Beautiful alpine lake about 7500' elevation. There is an easy trail down to the lake and the wildflowers were stunning and surprisingly prolific for August. Trout were rising but I didn't have my Idaho resident fishing license yet.

We really enjoy looking for and ID'ing wildflowers and Idaho has the most beautiful and varied we have ever seen.

After we hiked into the lake we drove further and had a great picnic lunch overlooking a huge high mountain pasture maybe 3 miles across. Couple of small creeks meandering through gave us a fantastic lunch backdrop. We drove on up toward the peak of  Snowbank mountain and saw a bunch of dust.

This great big ass UFO landed. No one got out so we left.

Let's go camping

We decided we would go camping like we did when the kids were little. We had a tent, sleeping bags, air mattress, borrowed coleman stove, pretty much everything needed to camp.


 We headed up north on 55, turned onto the Banks-Lowman hwy and then north up the middle fork of the payette to where silver crk rd forks east. We camped at the Silver Creek Plunge, a private campground on a forest service lease. The area was beautiful and our site was 20 ft from the creek.

The campground had a really cool natural hot springs pool. The warm springs bubbled right out of the rocks seen at the side of the pool. Nice dip but it would have been better if it hadn't been 95° when we got there.

Everything was great until we climbed into the sleeping bags and the temp plummeted. We were freezing all night. No sleep just shivering. I finally climbed out at dawn and got a bonfire going. We planned to stay another night but semi-fortunately the Tahoe broke down and we road in a tow truck back to Crouch.
We needed to rethink this camping.

The reasons

The primary reason we moved and the source of our greatest enjoyment without question is our granddaughters.

                                                                                Mae

                                                                               Anna

We love being a regular fixture in their lives and try our best to spoil the crap out of both of them.

The start

Well I retired in 2005. I didn't have anyone to play with until Jennifer retired in 2010. We sold our place in Montana and moved to Eagle, ID.

We bought a house on the edge of town and started our retired life 3/4th of a mile from our son, Seth's house.

                    So here we are in Eagle and now it was time to concentrate on having fun.