So, today was going to be a 280-mile drive, but we planned to split it up.
We would drive 150 miles from City of Rocks National Reserve to Craters of the Moon National Monument where we would spend two or three hours before completing our drive north up U.S. 93 past the Lost River Range and then west along ID Hwy 75 along the Salmon River to Torreys, Idaho.
But before we get to that, I'll just tell you that I did end up with a cold and was not feeling very well, and Linda was starting to show signs of catching it. Last night didn't help.
Around 10:oo p.m., two ladies came by and asked if they could put one of their horses in the corral at our site. They had two horses and the corrals in the equestrian camping area were a bit small, so they didn't want to put both in one.
I told them "Sure" and let them know we would be leaving early, around 7:00 a.m.
Well, at 4:00 a.m., the horse in our corral started whinnying. And it didn't stop. So, I didn't get much sleep. Linda managed to sleep through the whinnying, but she woke up when it started to bang against the railings and pawing the ground hard.
The saying "No good deed goes unpunished" came to mind. In our past years working as campground hosts, our kindness sometimes came back to bite us in the rear, and this was another instance.
We went ahead with our plan though we were both pretty tired. We left the dump station around 7:30, and we arrived at Craters of the Moon somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00. Before getting there, I took a few photos from the road and from a roadside overlook.
We turned into the park and found an open RV site at the Robert Limbert Visitors Center.
It was quite busy inside, but we were all alone in the theater when we went in to watch the 20-minute movie about the park. The movie runs on the hour and half hour, and it was very well done.
The most interesting thing was the segment on the ice caves below the monument property. Those aren't accessible by the public, but they looked amazing.
After the movie, I took a couple photos of the tents and RVs in the Lava Flow Campground across the road.
The campground has no hook-ups and is only $15 on a first-come, first-served basis. It does NOT have a dump station or a place to take on water. It gets great reviews, but I think that may be more because of the uniqueness of camping in a lava field. It didn't look very appealing to us, and we generally like that sort of thing.
We took time to unhitch the Jeep so we could drive the 7-mile Loop Road without having to be concerned about parking at the various stops along the way. There were lots of small motorhomes driving through as well as a few trucks with small trailers and a Class A motorhome or two. There is one short, steep downgrade, but we could have taken the Class C even towing the Jeep. Still, we felt much more comfortable in the Jeep.
The entrance fee is $20, but we have an America The Beautiful Annual Pass, so our entrance was covered.
The first stop was the North Crater Flow.
There is a third of a mile, paved trail through the lava.
We've been through enough lava fields and lava lectures over the years, that we didn't go very far before turning back.
Next, we took the short spur road to the Devil's Orchard, a half-mile walk on a nice, paved path through a garden of cinders and small formations.
It's a great little, easy trail and surprisingly there was no one else on it today. The Visitors Center seemed very busy, but once we got on the Loop road, there were really very few people out there.
The most interesting aspect for us the whole day was the wildflowers growing in the cinders all over the park. Apparently, our timing was really good, as these little, pink Dwarf Monkeyflowers were in full bloom and were everywhere in the Devil's Orchard and beyond.
And mixed in with the monkeyflowers was the beautiful Dwarf Buckwheat.
Along with the flowers are many dead trees killed off by the parasitic Dwarf Mistletoe.
Certainly, with a heavy concentration of such dead trees with the remnants of the mistletoe hanging on, one can understand how this came to be known Devil's Orchard.
Moving on, we headed toward the next stop on the map, but we had to stop and take photos of the massive cinder gardens covered in Dwarf Monkeyflower, Dwarf Buckwheat, and the blooms of the Bitterroot plants.
From every viewpoint, you could see these whitish covering of flowers on the normally black and brown terrain.
Next, we stopped at the Inferno Cone. It's a short (.4 miles), but very steep, exposed hike to the top.
With Linda's knees, and the steep downhill return trip, she decided to sit this one out.
Here's a look back over the parking lot from the first level.
Looking north toward the Visitors Center (far left).
These shots are looking out toward the Spatter Cones which would be our next stop.
At the top, there is one tree, ....
and beyond it is a view of the Great Rift which extends for 52 miles to the southeast. Eruptions creating the lava fields of Craters of the Moon were along the Great Rift, a series of deep cracks in the earth's surface.
The 360-degree-views from the top of Inferno Cone were quite impressive.
We moved on to the Spatter Cones where there is a wheelchair-accessible path to a smaller cone, and a tenth of a mile paved, steep trail up to a larger cone.
The best part of this walk, for us, was seeing this Mountain Bluebird (Idaho's state bird) with a bug that it fed to its youngster a few minutes later.
On the way back to the Jeep, I took this shot of Inferno Cone where I had been just a few minutes prior.
On the way to the next stop, there was another huge section of flowers with a couple of game trails through them.
Linda commented, "At least the animals know how to stay on a trail, and they don't even need a sign telling them to do so."
We then took the spur road to the Tree Molds trailhead. However, it was a mile to get to the tree molds and a mile return, and we didn't want to take that much time. It sounded cool though. From the website:
While still molten, this lava flow knocked down and ignited trees. The charred tree trunks left impressions in the lava rock. In other places, the trees remained standing as the lava encased them, leaving vertical molds in the cooling lava.
The last area was the Caves area. There is a half-mile trail that goes to four caves, but you have to have a permit. They are concerned about white-nose syndrome which harms bats, so you have to be "screened" to get a permit. You can't take anything in that has been in a cave elsewhere, including shoes, boots, clothing, packs, or even camera straps.
The Caves information looked interesting, but we didn't want to mess with getting a permit, so we skipped it on this tour.
And that was pretty much it for our tour of Craters of the Moon. Honestly, I'm glad we spent a couple nights at City of Rocks, and stopped by here for about two and a half hours. It's a very interesting place, but it didn't have two days' worth of appeal to us.
We left Craters of the Moon about 1:30 for the remaining 130 miles of today's trip. Heading north on U.S. 93, we had mountain views during that entire section.
Mount Borah is in this range and, at 12,662 feet, it's Idaho's tallest mountain.
At the intersection of U.S. 93 and ID Hwy 75, we turned west onto Hwy 75 and followed it along the Salmon River on the Salmon River Scenic By-Way.
After 34 miles of riding along the river, we made it to Torreys Burnt Creek Inn where I had made reservations a couple days ago.
There are tons of campgrounds in the area, but I settled on this one due to it having hook-ups, not being in the most touristy area, and being a good spot to check out the other campgrounds in person for the next time we come through.
We checked in ($30/night plus tax), and were assigned to Site 5 (there are only 10 sites).
After unhitching the Jeep, Linda backed into our site.
The river runs behind our site, but it's a 30-foot drop and we can't see it or hear from our rig.
So, the sites are widely spaced and the views in each direction are pretty darn good, ....
but it would be nice to have some shade behind our site where we could sit out and enjoy the river, especially this evening as it was really hot.
Later on, I decided to go on a drive, but Linda declined. With our early morning wake-up, the long drive, and her cold starting to worsen, she was beat.
I drove along the river stopping at a couple of overlooks and all the campgrounds between Torreys and the town of Stanley.
One frustrating thing about the campgrounds was they consider a towed car as an extra vehicle, and they charge half of the regular camping rate for the extra vehicle. Rates ranged from $14 to $18 (no hook-ups), so it would cost an extra $7 to $9 for the Jeep. That's a bit steep for a campground with no hook-ups, even if it is on the river. The river location was somewhat offset by the closeness of the campgrounds to the road.
Anyway, there are a few sites that are very, very nice and there are dispersed camping areas as well.
I got back around 8:00 when we had dinner and called it a night. It had been a long day, but the second half of today's drive was one of the prettiest we've had in a long, long time.
Tomorrow, we're going to just do a little scenic driving and do a little paddling on a lake near Stanley. With both of us under the weather, we'll take it fairly easy.
Beautiful area. We never tire of going there. There's a lot to see even off the beaten path and some not for the faint at heart, but with your vehicle, a back country round trip is do-able.
Posted by: Renee Galligher | Monday, June 18, 2018 at 11:54 AM
That last campground is really nice, Howard. Just don't get those extra vehicle charges. If it fits on a campsite, there shouldn't be an issue.
Posted by: Diana and Jim | Monday, June 18, 2018 at 12:47 PM