- September 16, 2017
- 26 photos


Somehow it’s me and four ladies camping high in the Idaho mountains, two of them for the first time.
Somehow it’s me and four ladies camping high in the Idaho mountains, two of them for the first time.
Against prevailing wisdom, we set a course for a ridge high above Stanley to sleep then sit in observation of the celestial mating.
Four guys in a Jeep drove up a hill and nothing got broke.
Wherein we finally demonstrate for Alexis that Boise is French and that not all of my shortcuts are … oh, wait, nevermind.
More trips with Europeans: Nick from Poland joins us for an exciting adventure to one of Idaho’s frontier towns.
We convince a young frenchman that sub-zero is an appropriate temperature for an Idaho outing.
Laura finds she won’t have time to prepare for her semester in Japan and also visit us for Christmas so we make a quick decision to drive up for the weekend to see and help her pack.
Boulder Basin came to mind when the need for a getaway arose. It’s about as far removed from civilization as you can get in an automobile around here, enough of a trip that you’d best plan on spending the night.
You can’t keep us indoors with their mom once again away. I let the kids vote (probably a mistake) on an hour drive or three with our resulting sights set on an overnight among the trees overlooking Boise. At least we won’t end up stuck in big mountain snow. Or will we?
Brenna’s mom is out of town. You know what that calls for! Camping. Since she’ll have the Jeep, we’ll make due with campground camping we can reach with the baby hippo car. I’ve always liked the look of a few spots above Arrowrock Reservoir so we set our heading accordingly. Engage!
It was down to the wire whether our Thanksgiving with Heather, Eric and kids could be at their cabin in Atlanta, Idaho. Record breaking November snowfall left the sixty mile mountain dirt road impassable. But a quick melt has things back on track. Or so it seems.
Something we’ve said we’d do for a while now, we load the kids up to visit Silver City then camp somewhere in the hills above. It was near freezing when I camped with my brothers recently but it seems warmer now. I hope so.
Keeping to the recent pattern, we drive south with the kids to camp at a place in the Owyhees I reconnoitered by motorcycle, stopping along the way to see the Owyhee Museum in Murphy.
Our eldest child Laura in town on holiday break from school at Washington State University seems a good reason to soak in our favorite hot spring, Kirkham, especially since Laura has never been there.
Jessica, Hunter, Brenna and I head to Boulder Basin north of Ketchum, Idaho, to spend the night at 9,700 feet among the tailings and crumbling log cabins abandoned some sixty years since metals were last dug and dissolved from the high rock arena.
Brenna and I drive to the recently opened Trinity Recreation Area to camp along Big Trinity Lake and feed the mosquitoes. She swims, makes me a flower salad and map while I prepare the hotdogs and marshmallows. After a restless night we leave to the sunrise reflecting fire off placid waters.
Little Brenna and I take the doors off the Jeep for a drive to Idaho’s historic Silver City and the surrounding alpine mountains. On the way we stop at the Owyhee Museum in Murphy then begins our search for the gold we finally discover in the setting sun with only a minor loss of skin.
Usually obscured by layers of rock and recollection, there are places where the history of land and people unfolds to reveal our own small place in the twining and termless chains of causality.
The kids and I try to get above the winter haze for some sledding and find a little more than we bargained for.
With the two youngest, a mermaid and some Pringles, we head over the mountains hoping the Kirkham Hot Springs are just that — hot — in spite of the deep freeze that has settled over Idaho. We test some extremes of hot and cold.
While my brother Jesse and Jessica’s sister Amanda are visiting for Christmas, the boys go for some adventure in snow on lava.
Heather and Eric invite us up to the cabin in Atlanta, Idaho we’ve heard so much about while under construction these past many months. We are excited to see it and spend Thanksgiving together.
Snow prevents us from reaching the Trinity lakes so we set up for a night along the cold creek below the lookout.
Having scouted it by motorcycle with my brother Joel, we decided our first Jeep camping trip would be near the historic Birch Creek homesteads along the Owyhee River.
A stretch of warm days give me hope we can take our new Jeep out for its first foray into the foothills above Boise.
We stopped here last fall after motorcycling up for an evening at the Sourdough Lodge. We knew the kids would love it. The tiny car, not so much..