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.