Dry Creek: June 6th, 2015

Alone on my own, for some reason its really hard for me to get my friends to come to the mountains with me but with them or without them you know Im going to hit the mountains. This trip was up Dry Creek where Swauger Lake sits and another little lake that is unnamed that I have been wanting to check out for awhile now.
I always seem to hit Swauger Lake at the first of the year because it sits at a lower elevation and gets quite a bit of sun light since it faces south. Last year we hit it pretty early and found a lot of snow with a lake that was frozen but this year has been a lot different, less snow and warmer weather made this lake open relatively early. On the drive in I could tell that the lake would be unthawed but the question would be how much of it. On the hike up I was reassured that the lake was going to open. The huge snow bank that we ran into last year was completely gone and sure enough the lake was ice free and the water was extremely clear compared to previous years.
Fishing was great! It seemed like I timed it just perfectly to where the fish were on the hunt for food. Catch rates were good and got to the point where unhooking the fish took longer than catching them. There was this one spot where all the fish where concentrated and looking for food. They didn't care that I was standing over them so I threw my Gopro to see if I could get some good footage and sure enough they weren't scared of that either. After seeing the video some people said that it looks like I put my Gopro in a raceway at a hatchery and not a mountain lake.

After fishing for a bout an hour a headed to that other lake that I wanted to check out. Curiosity was killing my cat so I had to go check it out and I'm glad that I did. This lake doesn't have any fish in it but it has some killer views. The mountains just tower over the lake with a few waterfalls dropping into the lake. I'm glad that I brought my Gopro because I don't think my other camera would be able to catch the mountains and the lake all in the same photo. The only thing that would have made this trip better was if there were trout in the lake.

The Hunt for Grayling: May 30th, 2015

Just getting out of school I was itching to get back home to fish but this early in the year I'm usually limited to a few spots such as the rivers which are going to be filled with rushing water and some lakes that are at lower levels that might be thawed off. With that in mind I decided to hit Mill Creek Lake that is located in the Little Lost drainage on the Lemhi Mountains.
Mill Creek Lake is a really short hike and has tons of Grayling that you can catch if you hit the right spots and use the right flies. I wanted to use my new float tube that I got over the winter but when I got to the trailhead there seemed to be a boy scout troop camping up there so instead I just took the bare essentials.
After arriving to the lake I sat down to grabbed a quick bite to eat and set up my pole. It didn't take very long until I hooked into some fish. This lake also has cutthroat that usually out number the Grayling but at the end of the day I only caught a few cutthroat with the Grayling summing up the rest of my catches. Fishing was really good with catch rates around 10 to 15 fish per hour. After awhile I decided to take out my Gopro and record some hook ups. The one spot that I came across where the water comes into the lake I was catching a fish on every cast, one video that I recorded I counted catching six fish in three minutes. Mill Creek Lake was a great place to fine tune my fish skills and get ready to enjoy another summer of fishing in Central Idaho.

Atlanta, Idaho: another trip into the backcountry

Another trip into the backcountry, this time the destination is Atlanta, Idaho. Atlanta is a small mining town that was founded I believe right after the Civil War. Atlanta is actually closer to Glenna Summit than anything else. Atlanta may have been the main destination but on the way up we planned on hitting mostly all of the hot springs that lie on Middle Fork of the Boise River. 

Pete Falls, 160 degrees

The road on the way up to Atlanta is terrible. When you turn off of Highway 21 its roughly 68 miles to Atlanta and takes at least 3 ½ hours to get there. The road its self after driving around the two dams isn’t too bad but driving around Lucky Peak and Arrowrock Reservoir took forever. The road is covered in pot holes and tons of fisherman, since this is one of the closest reservoirs from Boise.
The first hot springs that we hit was Loftus Hot Springs, this hot springs is first one that is big enough to wade in. But because it was the closest to Boise it was jam packed with groups of people. The pool itself had a nice sandy bottom and was quiet hot, I was only able to last a few minutes before I wanted to head up the river more to check out the others.

Granite Creek Hot Springs

The next one on the list was Granite Creek Hot Springs that ranked pretty high on our list. This pool was located right on the river just a few feet from the road. After checking the pool to see how warm it is, I changed into my suit and headed back down to the river to find Justin saying it was too hot. The top of the water was a lot cooler than the bottom of the springs where some of the heat comes up. After it being too hot we adjusted it too much with the river water and now it was too cold. We decided to head up to Atlanta to the other hot springs before sunset.

Atlanta

Chattanooga Hot Springs

When we got to Atlanta there was not a soul in sight, just what you would expect with an old mining town. We continued through town to find Chattanooga Hot Springs and our final resting point for the night. Chattanooga Hot Springs is roughly located about a mile out of town and next to the river. This one also ranked pretty high on the list because the springs seep out of a Cliffside and run down into a shallow pool close by the river.
We decided to set up camp before dark and then come back to soak. By the time we were done and ready to go soak another couple joined us and we thought we would soak for about 15 minutes and then go eat dinner, but after talking to the couple we sat in the hot springs for two hours watching the sunset and the stars come across the sky. I think the reason we stayed so long was that nobody wanted to get out and fight the cold air.

Filling up the Pool

The night brought the cold and none of us slept very well at all. The temperatures dropped into the teens and all I could hear at night where two wolves howling back and forth across the valley. One of the worse nights of sleep in the woods but it happens. We also thought that we set our tent up where the sun would rise and hit it in the morning however that never happened until 10 o clock. The morning was so cold my stove was having troubles heating up water and took its sweet time to do it.

Frozen Towel

Atlanta Hot Springs

Atlanta Hot Springs

After we ate breakfast and placed all our stuff in the sun to dry out we hiked to Atlanta Hot Springs, which was just a few yards up the road from where we camped. We were a little skeptical about this one sense the couple last night told us about spidermites being there that can get into all of your stuff if you leave it on the ground. But I was so cold that I need a good soak to start the day right.

Kirby Dam

Atlanta's Source of Power

Atlanta Hot Springs was by far my favorite, it was a huge pool that was plenty hot and deep. After checking the surround area for any spidermites it was go time. We had to soak our swimming suits in the water to un-thaw them in order to put them on. By the time we got out it was time to pack it up and head on back to Boise. We figured we explore Atlanta a little bit more and then we would stop by Granite Creek one last time on the way out to break the 3 ½ hour drive back.

Middle Fork of the Boise

Log Jam

Granite Creek

Soaking the Beard

Taking in the Views

Indian Hot Springs and Bruneau Dunes

After living and going to school in Boise I have finally come to realize that I haven’t really explored the surrounding areas of Boise. Just in the past year I finally started to get out into the Foothills but even now I probably have only seen have half of the Foothills. I’m not sure how much longer I am going to be in Boise with graduating in May so I thought I better get out and explore.

At REI I noticed a book that illustrated all the Hot Springs that can be found in Idaho. After looking through this book I decided that I needed to purchase it and start finding some of this Hot Springs. If you haven’t heard of the book it’s called “Complete Guide to Idaho Hot Springs” by Doug Roloff. The book includes “13 Idaho Regions with over 110 natural hot springs identified-comprehensive directions and descriptions-includes dozens of remote and hard to find hot springs- fun facts about geology, geography, and history for each region”. This is a great book to have and I highly recommend it.

After reading through it I decided on a few trips that I wanted to take that were close to Boise. One of them being a hot springs located just outside Bruneau called Indian Hot Springs. So after gathering my stuff I headed to Bruneau Sunday evening to find the hot springs. The book was a great guide and lead me to the roads that I needed to take. Everything went according to plan until I ran into a huge tumbleweed wall, no lie. The road that I needed to take for the remaining mile was blocked by a wall of tumbleweeds. How did this happen, well the road drops down into a canyon and then leads back down to the Bruneau River. However with all the wind and open landscape it was a perfect situation to build a wall out of tumbleweeds. 

With that being said I just parked on an open spot that I would later camp at and loaded up my pack and took off toward the hot springs before sunset. The hike didn’t take long and the hot springs were right where the book led me. The hot springs itself were much better than I had anticipated, the one pool was at least two feet deep and about 90 to 100 degrees. It was a perfect soak and I ended up coming back in the morning for another. After that I looked around a bit and found a survey marker for the endangered snail that lives in these parts. I didn’t look around much after that, afraid that I would step on the last remaining one, so I headed back to my car to go explore my next location the Bruneau Sand Dunes.

 

Bruneau Sand Dunes

The Bruneau Sand Dunes is something else, if I had to describe it “it’s three huge mounds of sand out in the middle of a desert. I always thought that it was a place for people to come and ride their motorcycles and four-wheelers but since it’s a national park it can only be touched by footprints. It was a perfect day for hiking and I had the park to myself so I took advantage of it and hiked around the whole lake and climbed a few of the dunes. It was very interesting to read how these dunes were developed and how they were formed thousands of years ago. I’m glad I was able to finally see what this sandbox was all about.  

Fun Fact: The park is the site of North America's highest single-structured sand dune which is approximately 470 feet (140 m) high.

History

The Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park, established in 1970, is located about 8 miles east-northeast of Bruneau and about 18 miles south of Mountain Home. The dunes at Bruneau Dunes State Park are unique in the Western Hemisphere. Other dunes in the Americas form at the edges of natural basins; these form near the center.

The combination of 1) a source of sand; 2) a relatively constant wind activity; and 3) a natural trap have caused sand to collect in this semicircular basin for over 20,000 years. Geologists believe the dunes seen today may have started with sands from the Bonneville Flood about 15,000 years ago.

Unlike most dunes, these do not drift far. The prevailing winds blow from the southeast 28 percent of the time and from the northwest 32 percent of the time, keeping the dunes fairly stable.

Although there are many small dunes in the area, two prominent dunes cover approximately 600 acres. These two imposing dunes are striking, particularly because they dwarf most of the nearby land features. The westernmost dune is reported to be the largest single-structured sand dune in North America with a peak 470 feet above the level of the lakes. "Digital Atlas of Idaho"

After leaving the state park I headed back to Boise on the back roads leading around to Nampa and then to Boise. It was a great overnight trip and after I got back I looked around on Google Earth and found a few other places to explore out in the desert. Looks like I need to make another trip here shortly.