Wanting to make the pull from Colorado up to Idaho to visit some family next summer in Boise. Have 3 Polaris Sportsman's that we want to take. Best areas to stay and ride directly out of either a campground or forest camping? Trailer is a 45' Voltage so any campground would have to be able to handle something that big. Thanks!!

Check the sand dunes at St. Anthoney.

If you are up to boondocking, check out FS/NF roads 008 (Seafoam Rd). A lot of good boondocking spots up here with a lot of FS roads that go back into the Frank Church (Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness). Bull Trout is a great place, but the FS rangers have rules there. Another great area to go to is FS 579 over Cape Horn Summit and down into Bruce Meadows and Bear Valley. There are also boondocking spots here and along Cape Horn Creek. Check all these areas out using Google Maps or Google Earth. They are all off of Hwy 21. FS Rd 579 is also know as the Landmark Stanley Road. FS Rd 083 Lola Creek Rd deadends past Lola Creek CG, but you can camp there, it's called Marsh Creek. On the road to Lola Creek CG are many boondocking sites that will fit your rig and from there you can ride to FS 008 and up to Josephus Lake and beyond. Great country. We boondock in these areas, but have yet to tow to the Bruce Meadows area but we've seen a lot of big toy haulers there.

ReneeG wrote:If you are up to boondocking, check out FS/NF roads 008 (Seafoam Rd). A lot of good boondocking spots up here with a lot of FS roads that go back into the Frank Church (Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness). Bull Trout is a great place, but the FS rangers have rules there. Another great area to go to is FS 579 over Cape Horn Summit and down into Bruce Meadows and Bear Valley. There are also boondocking spots here and along Cape Horn Creek. Check all these areas out using Google Maps or Google Earth. They are all off of Hwy 21. FS Rd 579 is also know as the Landmark Stanley Road. FS Rd 083 Lola Creek Rd deadends past Lola Creek CG, but you can camp there, it's called Marsh Creek. On the road to Lola Creek CG are many boondocking sites that will fit your rig and from there you can ride to FS 008 and up to Josephus Lake and beyond. Great country. We boondock in these areas, but have yet to tow to the Bruce Meadows area but we've seen a lot of big toy haulers there.Great!! Thanks for the info!

Rockerrider - You're welcome. Let me know if you have any other questions. We boondock a lot in the Cape Horn area past Lowman and before Stanley off Hwy 21. We Jeep a lot of that area too and now we have a small pop-up camper too to tow behind our Jeep to camp in backcountry area where our FW won't fit.We've seen boondockers close to Hwy 21 off the Landmark Stanley Road. From there you could ATV down to Bruce Meadows, Dagger Falls, Bear Valley CG and beyond. Also, you can boondock up at Stolle Meadows off the road to Warm Lake, east of Hwy 55. There's a free CG up there with a nice outhouse. A lot of ATV'ers up there too and although we've never taken our FW up there, we've seen quite a few. It would depend upon your comfort level in driving FS 474 from Warm Lake Road. Or you can camp at the South Fork of the Salmon River CG (again off of Warm Lake Rd), then take your ATV's up to Stolle Meadows.

Don't limit yourself to established campgrounds and you'll open up a far more areas to camp and explore in Idaho. When you get back home be sure to tell everybody how much Idaho sucked.

Idaho riding suggestions | Good Sam Community

centerline
Explorer
Dec 23, 2017
ReneeG wrote:

We've driven our Jeep up there and found no suitable area to park our FW, so I'm not sure that Rockerrider will be able to park is toyhauler at the foot of the mountain heading up. Maybe other's familiar with this area can chime in with advice.

we have been there twice with our 38ft 5th wheel, and as for boondocking, there is lots of camping on jordan creek... but it is much better to come in from the oregon/jordan valley side if pulling anything over 30ft.... but there is considerable amount of boondocking when coming in form the idaho side also.

no, the idaho side is not all shady with a nice creek running thru it like jordan creek offers, but flat, level and as secure as one could expect is all that is needed sometimes...

one can camp on jordan creek and in any of the staging areas free of charge, of which there are 6 coming in from the idaho side. as well as some sites that are not developed, but where others have camped before.
there are 3-4 sites on jordan creek that are big enough for a group of trailers to park.

there arent many side roads where one would want to take an rv, but of the couple that are navigable, if one was to park and take a ride on their atv, they will find some nice camp sites there also...

other than the jordan creek camping, with only a couple of exceptions, the silver city area is all "dry" camping..

everyone has a different idea as to what is an acceptable camp site, just as some (my cousins wife) refuses to camp anywhere that does not have a water spigot and a power post.
some of us only need a place thats reasonably clear of brush, where we can get level, out of the way of others, and wont disturb the neighbors with our atv's.. a shade tree or a creek is only a bonus.

some of our very best camping experiences over the past many years have been dry shadeless areas that no one else thought of parking. so we had seclusion.

developed campgrounds are usually expensive, and the ones that arent usually have nothing more to offer than a primitive site...

one has to love the freedom they are allowed for camping on BLM lands..
ReneeG
Explorer
Dec 24, 2017
Thanks for the information Centerline. We agree on the boondocking way of camping. We much prefer that to hookups.
Rockerrider
Explorer
Dec 26, 2017
Wow...Thanks for all the the replies and info! I have a lot of reading and researching to do. TV is a 2012 DRW F350 so no issues there. We prefer to boondock as well so that is the rout we will be going. Thanks again for all the info!!
ReneeG
Explorer
Dec 26, 2017
Rockerrider, you're welcome. We're all here if you have additional questions.

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