I spent these last few days house-sitting the Godwins and with some free time on my hands. I was a bit tired of hiking in the foothills and so I first though I'd drive out to the Snake River Birds of Prey area and wander through Swan Falls and possibly the park out near Melba (Centenntial? Celebration? I'm having a blonde moment...) I then decided that it was a bit far, especially if I was going to be heading back to Eagle to have dinner with Abbey later that night anyway. While driving home from Caldwell with Katie and Joanna on Thursday, one of them mentioned Shafer Butte, so I did a bit of research and decided to make that my new destination. I found a few trails and wrote some notes and then packed a bag and the dog and we were off.
Guys, Bogus Basin road is terrifying. I cannot imagine driving that in the winter-time. No thank you, sir. So many hairpin turns and windy sections. Ugh. But we made it all the way to the top of Bogus Basin in one piece. Shafer Butte was still pretty snow-covered but the snow was quite firm and so we decided to at least start and see where the path took us. I think I was walking through some ski trails but the names matched up with the trails I had written down so I figured that I was at least somewhat in the right place. There was a thick layer of snow on the ground but I was in a tank top and running capris and actually hot. So hot that at times, I'd pick up a snow ball, let my hands get cold and then run my hands up and down my arms to cool off. It was bizarre. After about 40 minutes (maybe?), I went to check my phone and could not find it. I headed back to the car in a bit of a panic- especially because I was worried it might have fallen out of my bag while i was taking my camera out. But in my defense, the snow had started to get a bit more slushy and it had become a lot hard to hike so I most likely would have headed back not much longer after. The phone was found on the passenger seat and I decided to head down the mountain and see if there were any other trails to pursue.
If only it had been clearer- I wish you could have seen Boise down below better but at least there weren't any inversion clouds. I stopped at a couple of the turn-offs to look at the views and maybe about halfway down the road, there was a turn-off and a path. It wasn't too steep so we climbed to the top, wandered around the rock formations and took in the views. The hills were SO green and I was reminded of Ireland in March. Again, I wish it could have been less muggy but it definitely wasn't hot and the views were spectacular. Totally worth the terrifying drive!
With the Idaho City hotsprings and the trip to Bogus Basin, I'm now three Idaho locations away from crossing another item off my list. Where to next???
Looks awesome!
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