With the warmer weather finally making its way north, and the Tacoma at home for a bit of maintenance after the last several months of living in Las Vegas, @mrs.turbodb and I thought that it would be fitting to mark the anniversary of our very first trip in the Tacoma by visiting the Owyhee. We wouldn't explore exactly the same spots - we rarely do - but we'd find ourselves in wonderfully similar surroundings, the fleeting green grass of spring welcoming us back. This time, we'd explore the Idaho side of this amazing wilderness, discovering - along the way -…
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Lolo Motorway, Macgruder Corridor, Hot Springs, Sawtooth Mountains, ...
It's been over a year since I was last in Idaho, and boy did I miss it! So, after spending a few weeks at home upon returning from the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route (NMBDR), and with @mrs.turbodb heading out on a camping trip with her dad, late July seemed like the perfect time for me to whip up a little something in the Sawtooths. The key word there being "seemed." I'd been collecting places to go - some of them from roads not travelled on earlier trips, others discovered online one way or the other, and one in particular…
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I've been asked by folks who don't go on as many trips as I do, "How do you know that the roads you plan on a route - using satalite imagery - are open?" The answer, of course, is that not every trip goes exactly as planned - and that's a good thing. It is what makes a trip into an adventure. This trip, to Idaho and Montana with Mike @Digiratus, Zane @Speedytech7 and Dan @drr was exactly that - an unplanned adventure - nearly every road we'd planned to take, CLOSED.
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It seems like we were just in the Owyhee Uplands - because we were! We'd wrapped up our previous trip from Idaho's Owyhee Uplands to Oregon's Alvord Desert less than a month earlier, but when a few buddies wanted to get together for a Memorial Day adventure, it seemed like a great place to return! This time, we'd start at the north end of the Owyhee Canyonlands near Lake Owyhee, and head south towards Three Fingers Rock and the north edge of Jordan Craters. Then, we'd turn east through Silver City, Idaho to the Big Jack Creek Wilderness and eventually…
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In all of our trips to the Owyhee area, we've only ever really explored the western half - the Owyhee Canyonlands. Of course, there's some really cool stuff there - Three Forks, Coffepot Crater, the Honeycombs, Snively Hot Springs, and Juniper Gulch - but the Owyhee area is quite a lot larger than its Oregon acreage. With this trip, we were going to change all that - and then some! Our plan - at least at the beginning - was to hit up the Owyhee Uplands Backcountry Byway, a ~100 mile journey from Grand View, Idaho to Jordan Valley, Oregon,…
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If you’ve ever wanted to travel endless twisty mountain roads, the Idaho BDR will throw corners at you for days on end. You also won’t get many digital interruptions because your cell phone won’t have reception on much of this route. It’s a true off- the-grid ride with plenty to see along the way! Starting in the historic town of Jarbidge, NV the route crosses range lands and then heads into the Boise National Forest and treats riders with views of Andersen reservoir and epic alpine camping at Trinity lakes. Tiny towns and treasures like Burgdorf Hot Springs make this…
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In what has become a two-year tradition, the 4th of July weekend found us back in Idaho with Ben and Kirsten, exploring around the central part of the state. This year, we made our way to a few places we'd been before - namely Railroad Ridge (the highest road in Idaho), and the creeptastic Livingston Mine. But, we also visited several places that were new - often the best part of any trip - Deadwood Reservoir, Dagger Falls, Washington Basin, the Old Custer Motorway, and Twin Peaks. In the process, we crossed avalanche- and scree-fields, explored lost mines, and found…
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In what would become nearly a month in the state of Idaho, we left for our first trip as the calendar ticked over to July. On the schedule were two places I'd had on my list for a while - Indian Hot Springs and Idaho's City of Rocks State Park. Both of these turned out to be everything I'd imagined - Indian Hot Springs was rugged and remote, the old bridge across the river impassable*; City of Rocks was as unique a sight as we could see in Idaho, the granite outcroppings rising up out of the valleys and reaching…
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After paralleling the road for about 12 miles, Eagle Creek drains into the Salmon River - and we found ourselves at this point after passing several ATVs, UTVs, and dirt bikes, but without running into the rest of our group. Had we gone the wrong way? We were sure we hadn't - we were after-all, on the track.
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How does that saying go? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, ..." If you've been a reader of previous trip reports, you may recall one of the craziest trips to date - The De-Tour - which occurred almost exactly one year ago. That trip was a great one for many reasons, but it had gone nothing like we'd expected - snowing or raining every day - eventually forcing us to abandon our Tour of Montana and Wyoming for what we hoped were clearer skies, in Utah. ...where it also rained on us. Even so, upon our return, we almost immediately…
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As June turned to July, we were headed east. Our destination - Idaho - and a trip to some of the favorite spots of a fellow adventurer. In two-and-a-half days, we'd explore only a small slice of what central Idaho has to offer, but in the process we'd experience some amazing highs - not to mention the highest road in the state - and some crazy places. Through the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, we'd find ourselves at Feltham Point and Pinyon Peak Lookout before being turned around by snow drifts and backtracking a bit to Seafoam Lake.…
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