Week 4 Recap — Unsung Idaho
Of all the states we’d list when people asked about our planned route, Idaho was perhaps the one met with the least fanfare.
Montana? Everyone knows Glacier National Park. Wyoming? There’s Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, and the Tetons. Utah? The pictures from Zion National Park hikes are ubiquitous at this point. Oregon, Washington, California — whether it’s the big cities throughout those states or the well-known nature spots, everyone is excited.
But Idaho? Most often, we were met with confused questions when we mentioned Idaho and our excitement to spend a couple weeks there. What do people do there? Is it nice? Will you eat potatoes? The answers, in order, are a lot, yes very, and of course/hopefully many.
Maybe it’s because the state has no official national park — which to most people who have spent any modicum of time exploring the state is a bit shocking — or because its biggest city is Boise. Whatever the reason, people are just not familiar with Idaho and what it brings to the table.
But we’d seen the pictures. We’d read about the hiking and generally abundant nature to dive into. And, yes, we are big fans of potatoes. So we were excited to cross the Montana border into Northern Idaho and begin our journey throughout the state. It did not disappoint.
We started the week by wrapping up our time in Coeur d’Alene, the beautiful mountain town set on a huge lake, with the Bitterroot Mountain Range (part of the Northern Rockies) along its perimeters. We spent a few days there, hiking nearby during the day and working out of various coffee shops in the afternoon. We left on a rainy day for Central Idaho and the city of Moscow, home to the state’s flagship university. We got a small reprieve from the rain in the middle of our drive and made the most of it by hiking along Moscow Mountain on the outskirts of the town. Post-hike, we spent the remainder of the afternoon again working out of a coffee shop after walking around the town’s main street.
At night, we pulled into a free spot on the county’s fairgrounds land in the middle of the town. We set up for the night and began making dinner. With a pan on the burner, Jordy heard a noise he couldn’t quite place and went to investigate. He turned toward the front door and there sat a small cat, in the van, meowing. Startled, Jordy knocked the pan off the burner, yelled, the cat ran away, and the door was quickly shut to prevent a return trip for the cat.
Having recovered from the cat incident the night before, we set out early the next morning on the 5.5-hour drive to Boise. It’s worth calling out that we’ve done a lot of road trips over the last five or six years — between us, we’ve driven to Toronto, Maine, Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, Vegas, Arizona twice, and quite a few places along the way. We’ve driven all over the country.
This drive easily ranks amongst the best. It’s not just that it’s beautiful — which it is — but it’s also that there’s such a variety of scenery along the way. As you leave Moscow, you’re in the heart of a region called the Palouse, which spans Western Idaho and Eastern Washington, and is unlike anything we’d seen before. The terrain is made up of a series of golden rolling hills far into the distance that made for an excellent start to the trip.
As you progress through the drive, you hit mountain ranges with dense national forests at their base. You pass through beautiful mountain and lake towns — we stopped in McCall and grabbed a beer at the Salmon River Brewery and walked the town center. From there, we continued south toward Boise through mountains and ravines, and decided to take a detour to experience a natural hot spring. We found the Pine Flats Hot Springs, one of many in the area, and did the short hike up to the springs. We found a couple empty pools, hopped in, and sat with mountains as our backdrop and the Payette River rushing below. We dried off, cooked dinner at the trailhead, and headed out for the final part of our drive.
We spent the next four nights in Boise and loved getting to know the city. We did our standard routine, hiking in the morning and working in the afternoon, mostly from coffee shops but also over a flight of wines at the Hyde Park Wine Shop one afternoon. We hiked Harrison Hollow, a central hiking area directly in the city with awesome views of downtown. We walked the Green Belt, a riverside pathway winding along the Boise River, while catching up with Jamie Brennan, who was on the newspaper staff with Jordy back in high school and has lived in Boise for the last five years (shout out to Jamie for the amazing recommendations!). We spent the weekend exploring downtown, eating at the Boise Fry Company (you get to choose the type of local potato you want!) and hiking Bogus Basin, the mountain are just outside of town.
From the northernmost area to the cities in the south, Idaho has been beautiful the whole way. We write this from Stanley, Idaho, a town nestled among the Sawtooth Mountains. We’ll share some details and pictures from our hiking here in next week’s post.
From here, we’ll move onto our next state, Wyoming, as we start on our way back to Chicago for a couple weddings in October.
Where We Were
Starting in Northern Idaho and migrating to the southern part of the state, we were in Coeur d’Alene, then Moscow, and Boise. We finished the week in Stanley, which is centrally located in the state.
Where We’re Going
We start the trek back to Chicago over the next week. We’ll head to Wyoming and hit Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks, then make our way east to South Dakota and Badlands National Park.
Stat of the Week
0 — the number of minutes Jahna has driven the van on the trip so far!
