First Camping Trip – In Idaho

Over Memorial Day weekend we decided to go camping. I started looking for a place to camp a few weeks prior to the weekend, and found that there are a lot of places to camp in Idaho, but there were a few issues we had to figure out:

• Was it open yet? Many weren’t
• Could we make a reservation? There is a lot of “first come, first serve” sites.
• Were there water and toilets available? We are tent campers so this is important.
• Were there hikes nearby to do while we are there? We enjoy hiking.

I found that near to Boise there were a lot of the “first come, first serve” sites, and since we wouldn’t get to any of them until late on the Friday I wasn’t convinced that there would be anything available, so I had to expand the search. After much looking, I found a couple of sites on the east side of Idaho. I had the rest of the family look at them, and we decided on the Buffalo Campground outside of Island Park, ID. It was just over a 5 hour drive from our house so we knew getting there on the Friday and setting up camp was a no go so we booked a hotel room part way there. But we had to book the campsite for all 3 nights of the holiday weekend, because it was a holiday weekend. No worries.

We headed out Friday after everyone was home from home and school (the last day of school), and drove to the hotel. Then the next day we bought groceries and headed to the campsite. When we got there it seemed nice: there was a lots of space between campsites, there was already a large stack of wood from cut trees at the site, there was water very close and bathrooms not too far away. We started setting up camp and realized that there were mosquitoes. None of us are fans, but my kids and I are very much not fans. Well, we kept moving and setup the tent. It went pretty well and fast.

Then we headed to a hike. This was called the Moose Loop. It started off quite nice. We were walking along a river and things were going well. We saw birds and heard other creatures. Then the trail became harder to follow, but I had the trail on my phone so that helped us stay in the general direction. We found the trail again and proceeded down it but it got really wet and flooded. Not having fully waterproof anything we had to find a way around the water. That meant some bushwhacking had occur. It was a challenge. “A” lead the way and a few times tried to get us back onto the actual trail, but every time we thought we were good again, we would round a curve and there would be a lot of water on the trail again. The less than 3 mile hike ended up being a bit over 3 miles with all the detours we had to take. But it was nice, and there weren’t any mosquitoes on the hike. We then found a nice place to sit and had some dessert.

Then back to the campsite.

The rest of the evening involved dinner and killing mosquitoes. Seriously they were everywhere. So a fire was needed. Well, the wood that was at the site was still so fresh and large that it didn’t want to lite up at all. All three ladies worked hard at getting it to work, and eventually I had to drive into town and buy a box of firewood to help. The girls made s’mores, and the mosquitoes got their first banquet of us (mostly my kids). Then it was time for bed. My wife and I were a bit concerned about sleeping, because the overnight lows were supposed to be in the low 30’s, and possibly right at freezing. We have good sleeping bags, but still that is cold. We had extra blankets and thermals if needed. Well, I was warm all night. None of us slept great that night (it is camping after all). I didn’t need anything extra for warmth.

The next day we had breakfast (and so did the mosquitoes), and then we prepared for another hike. This time we hiked along a different river in the same area as the day before. Along this hike we saw lots of birds (mostly gulls of some kind but also a few ospreys), and we saw a marmot. The hike was to end at a waterfall after going over a bridge, well just as we found the bridge the ground turned to a bog.

It was a very nice hike. We had lunch on the way back to the car. It was a good 5 mile hike. Then back to the campsite (and the mosquitoes). Another dinner was made, and more s’mores were eaten by the ladies. Finally off to bed.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast (as did the mosquitoes). Then we tore down the campsite and packed up. Then we headed towards home. On the way we stopped at Harriman State Park and did a hike there (about 4 miles) and ate lunch there as well. It was pretty (See below).

Then the rest of the drive home. We took a different route home than the one we took to the campsite since we didn’t need to make sure to have food and a place to sleep along the way. So this route was a bit more rural. We drive by Crates of the Moon National Monument, and then through the Idaho National Lab area. It was a prettier drive home.

So was it fun? Well, I am not a big camper person. I don’t like all the work it takes to setup and tear down a campsite. It just isn’t fun. I never sleep as well and things never go as one hopes. But I like being in nature. But I will say that the mosquitoes were a big turn off for me (and I think the rest of us). We didn’t have bug spray, and we aren’t fans of all the chemical sprays out there, so that made things hard for all of us. I am not joking when I say that I am pretty sure I killed over 100 mosquitoes in the 2 days we were there. Each kid got over 30 bits each all over, and I think my wife did as well. I layered a lot so I ended up with less bites overall, but was a little too warm at times. Would I go back? Yes, but I think we would try and find a different campsite. The overall campground was very nice and it didn’t appear as if some of the other campsites had nearly as many mosquitoes as ours did for some reason. So, maybe we just made a bad choice of site.