Tag: Idaho

St. Joe’s National Forest, Idaho

With the help of the rangers at the Avery ranger district in the St. Joe’s National Forest, we found an awesome boondocking spot off FR 456. It is only 4 miles up 456 after you turn left onto it from Avery. We had no problem getting to it in our 35 foot fifth wheel, even going through the one lane tunnels. This road used to be a portion of the Milwaukee Railroad.

When we finished setting up camp, we went on a bike ride up FR 456. There are multiple tunnels along this road that go through the mountains. They are really creepy to drive through, but even more so on foot or on bike. When you begin to go through, the tunnel is so short you can see the light from the other side. But as you get more in the middle, the pitch black darkness consumes you. Even though you can still see a little bit of light from the other side, it can be disorienting. The walls of the tunnel disappear along with everything physical about you. All you can do is focus ahead and quickly follow the light…While riding we found trail head 196 at the Telipah campground (called North Fork campground in the atlas). The next day we explored this trail that hiked to Big Dick Point (not kidding on the name). It was a difficult 11 mile hike with a 3,000 foot elevation gain and max grades of 34% and -32%. Bring your hiking poles, or find a good stick.

After boondocking a few days we went to a little town in Idaho called Wallace to do laundry, re-up on supplies and take a much needed hot shower (not that we can’t shower in the RV, just better to save water when boondocking). We stayed at the Wallace RV park for $25 a night, full hookups. There is a nice restaurant/brewery on the property. After a hot shower and a flight of beers with fish and chips, I was one happy camper.

One of the things to do around here in the summer time is biking the Hiawatha trail. This 15 mile path used to be part of the Milwaukee Railroad. It’s in St. Joe’s NF and northeast of where Tim and I rode bikes a couple days earlier. The trail is pretty fun, there are multiple trestles and tunnels to go through. In fact, the start of the trail is a dark, wet and coooold 2 mile tunnel! It was really creepy to go this seemingly endless tunnel. The price to ride the trail is 10 dollars a person and if you don’t have a helmet and light you have to rent them. You are supposed to wear this equipment at all times. However, at the halfway point I took my helmet off since I HATE helmets. My philosophy is if I ride off the cliff I’m dead anyways so I might as well feel the breeze…I digress…For the most part, the entire trail is at a 1.7% downhill grade, meaning you don’t have to pedal hardly at all. Then you can take the shuttle back (for an extra fee $9/pp). We opted to ride the bikes back since we were already annoyed they charged us to ride on a bike path in the first place lol. I will say- it is a really awesome bike path.

Soon we will be heading to West Yellowstone and hope to find a boondocking spot outside the park. Thanks for reading. 🙂

Hell’s Gate State Park

After Washington’s wine country we continued our trip east and our next stop was Hells Gate State Park in Lewiston, Idaho. It is located on the Snake River at the entrance the Snake River Gorge, the deepest gorge in the US. The parking spots for the RVs were very large as were the sites themselves, you never felt crowded. Although it was a very dry area the park was very green with many trees from the constant watering. It felt like an oasis. Depending on your spot they had full hookups and an obstructed view of the river and surrounding hills.

Surprisingly it also was the most technologically up to date park we’ve stayed at. It had wifi internet that actually worked(There is no router in loop A so stay in B if you need access). It was provided by an outside company and cost $3 a day, or less the more days you purchased. They even had a yearly pass you could buy that was good for any Idaho State Park that provided internet for $20. I wish more parks would charge a couple bucks for internet and actually provide something useful rather than offer it free and be so slow you can’t even load a web page much less upload photos or watch a video. Another cool feature was the signs at the start of their trails had a Q code that would download a copy of the trail map to your phone. What a fantastic idea!

The trails within the park lead you up to the top of the surrounding hills and then down along the river for a total loop of about 5 miles. It was quite scenic but it was so hazy that we couldn’t see for much distance. Apparently the entire Northwest is currently on fire and the smoke from those fires is what was causing the haze. The fires also caused us to divert up north to get around them for our next stop.

We also had to go kayaking on the Snake River, of course. I didn’t want to have to use a shuttle service so I came up with the plan to chain our bikes down river at the pull out. That way we could just ride the bikes back to the truck and then go pick up the kayak. This was a great option because there is a bike path all along the river, it’s a great area for a bike ride. The water was surprisingly warm, a balmy 75 or so. It was refreshing to jump in but not so cold that you couldn’t breathe. Although I chained the kayak up, Victoria was afraid that someone would steal it(We had someone steal both our kayaks a few years ago). This turned out to be a great motivator for her, I’ve never seen her keep up such a great pace, lol.

I’d also like to give shout out to Commercial Tire in Lewiston. The brakes on the trailer were squeaking so I brought it there to get checked out before we headed into the real mountain roads. They jacked it up, took a look, said they were in great shape, greased the bearings, and then didn’t charge us for any of it.

Next up, bookdocking in the wilds of Idaho 🙂