WOW IDAHO! We Found An Incredible Campsite In The Sawtooth Mountains

We're Matt and Emily and we're camping in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. Let's rewind and we'll show you how we found this amazing dispersed campsite. We're in the middle of a road trip from Colorado to Washington state. If you've missed our previous videos on this road trip we'll have them linked below. On our way through central Idaho we made a quick stop at Craters of the Moon. Craters of the Moon National Monument is a stark otherworldly landscape of black lava flows, cinder cones and lava tubes formed by volcanic eruptions between about 15,000 and 2,000 years ago. Native Americans used and traveled through this landscape for thousands of years and it was designated a National Monument in 1924 to protect its unique geology. Within the National Monument site there is a seven mile loop drive with multiple pullouts and short walks. Top sites include the inferno cone for panoramic views, cave-like lava tubes and the scenic north crater flow for rugged hiking. We visited Craters of the Moon before so we didn't spend too much time here. We did however want to check out the campground. We would definitely consider staying here to experience camping in this unique landscape. We continued north through the scenic towns of Haley and Ketchum. This area has a lot of campgrounds and many forest service roads with dispersed campsites galore. Wow! Booyah! New high score achieved! 8,400 feet and we are still climbing. Fourth gear's working for me. I wonder where it's gonna end. This is our pass. This is it. What's our elevation? 8781. 8781 feet. Holy smokes we are up here. Once we crossed over Galena Pass and dropped back down the views just kept getting better. Oh yeah! That is beautiful. It's like being on the Icefield Parkway. Oh my gosh yeah. This might be their top five area here. Passing through Stanley we knew we were getting close to some pins we saved for the area and hopefully securing one of the best campsites we've ever seen. The anticipation was off the charts. Oh please be open and have a great view. You know we've been saying this a lot lately but please cross your fingers, toes, earlobes. Yeah. Come on baby. We gotta do a little scouting on foot and then we'll come and clear this tree if it's worth it. But I think this is a sign it's probably open. Might burn that too. Oh yeah. Firewood. My god this is epic. Rob and Annette thank you guys. We owe you a drink or 20. Good to go. You don't even know how jazzed we are right now. Let's pull up. Let's get in there. We can't believe this campsite was open. This may be our favorite campsite ever. Definitely top five. Get ready for so many shots of these mountains in this video. The views just kept getting better and better as the night went on. I mean the pictures don't do justice. This is insane. Oh and by the way look what we have in camp. Bear pile number one. Bear pile number two. Three. Good news is they look kind of small but they'll probably leave us alone. We'll leave them alone. But we're gonna get camp set up and holy crap we're gonna relax. So we just had the jeep and trailer there for thumbnail purposes for you guys. We're actually going to put it back behind camp. It's pretty flat back here. There we go. Question. Do any of you guys out there use this cardan? Supposed to be a little better for you. And I've heard it's actually in some cases better than DEET. But I don't know how 99% DEET can fail. Yeah this is what I use. Screw that other stuff. I'm not messing around. 40%. It's less toxic. I don't know. True. True. Whoever put this fire pit together did an amazing job. This thing is huge. We are gonna have some coals tonight. Get ready. Emma's about to eat ---- in three, two, one. Just drop that one. I think you came over and maybe caught your toe on the end of that. It almost had it and then you were good. I guess that could have been a lot worse. So this is what snagged and took me down. I wasn't watching where I was going. We're getting lucky. Two elk have just wandered into the valley below our campsite. We were thinking we would get some animal activity down there or we were hoping at least. So this is pretty fun to see. So coming in all the fire danger signs said low but just to make sure I went online to the National Forest website and it's actually moderate. Down south at the bottom of the state I believe it's high. So we're definitely okay here and the fact that there was a forest fire here within the last few years we're double okay. Oh my gosh this feels so good It's not even that cold it just on the smell. Yep smoke right here that smell oh it's great. We're just standing here watching a herd of elk. I think there's at least eight now that have slowly come down out of the mountain across the valley here and now we know the path they've traveled the same path. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yeah the eighth one's walking out now. This is so cool. It's gonna be warm. The sun already feels great. Nice hot springs. Yeah. We're gonna go ahead and cook over the fire this morning for breakfast. We're gonna have the hot dog roaster do double duty to support the pan. No elk this morning. No not yet. Well just doing some updates here. We came back pretty much the same route and then split off at Bear Lake. Came pretty much straight north through Soda Springs. Yeehaw. This is how you get dysentery on the friggin trail in Soda Springs. I already had that today. Oh great. We camped somewhere in here on this little range because we were just outside of Pocatello so somewhere like there. Oh yeah Scout Mountain. That was a nice little campground and what we came up here almost to Pocatello and then went straight south down to Scout. That was a pretty area and then fueled up in the morning grocery stop Pocatello up through Blackfoot. Oh we went through Arco. And then yeah Craters of the Moon. Yep. Yeah and down 20, 26, 93 through Cary, Bellevue, Haley, Ketchum Sun Valley and we are staring at the Sawtooth Range. It's what you've been seeing. And we even left some wood for the next people. So this was the backup spot if that amazing one was not available. I have a feeling this is still great too. I found a third spot. I mean there's options up here for sure but I bet in the summer it's crazy. Oh man this is great. A little sloped. Still great view. Oh they also left some wood as well. Good folks out here. Beautiful. Let's uh let's get to some water. Time to clean up. Well we are checking out Stanley Lake Campground just to check it out. Looks pretty dang sweet at the base of the Sawtooths here. Nice spots. Nice and spread out for the most part. Some privacy. Oh wow yeah. Oh that is an epic sight right there. Huge tent site overlooking the lake. Looks like we got a hiking trail going around. Sorry about our dust people. We weren't supposed to drive through here. We saw the sign a little too late. Oh cool. Yeah it's pretty. Just up the road was Redfish Lake, a popular attraction in this area especially in the summer months. So far not what I think of when I think of camping. Blasting music. Screaming kids. There's some sort of a race going on like a 10k so it's pretty busy here today. Wow not a bad view though. Yep that water is very cold. We came over to the dog beach. A little bit more quiet. They've just got a lot of like race announcements and things going on over by the lodge. Gorgeous views. Pretty cool spot. Whoa. Nice. Got me. I guess you uh need a lot of pressure when you're filling up big tanks here. That's true. Yeah we're just at kind of the service area so dump station's way down there. There's a fee for that I believe and then we've got the water. We're just gonna fill our jug because we're not exactly sure where we are gonna end up tonight. You asshole. You did that on purpose. We made our way into the Boise National Forest slowly moving out of Burn Scar and back into the Evergreens. Before finding camp for the night we had to make a stop to experience our first Idaho hot springs. We're making our way to the, I almost said Bonneville salt flats, Bonneville hot springs in the Boise National Forest here. Hopefully it's not too crowded. It's basically the middle of the day. I think it's about a quarter mile to the springs so we'll see what they look like when we get there. There's a five dollar fee to park your car but if you have the America the Beautiful Pass, the annual national parks pass, it's free. We just put that in our windshield and we actually just picked that pass up a few days ago in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. If you've never been there and you like dinosaurs or fossils or you have kids it's a great stop. Super cool. Well worth it. I think that's a rickshaw, like advanced high-tech rickshaw. Maybe we should get one I can haul you around. That'd be great. Idaho has well over 100 natural hot springs. Some are developed with facilities, others are more primitive like here at Bonneville. Temperatures can vary wildly, roughly 95 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The closer you are to where the springs mix with the river, the colder the water will be and vice versa. Be sure to always test the water before you soak. No cannonballs. Too hot for Matthew. He'd probably love that. Oh that's really oak. Ah don't step in that one. Okay that's the hollow. Wow maybe we go a little farther down. Yeah. Does it cool off a little bit? I mean that's, I can keep my hand in there but anything else no way. Oh looks better. Oh oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh yeah no there's no way you could get in that. I mean people are but it is way too hot. Let's see what's down here. Yeah that's for the, that's for the young folk. Oh there's more. Oh that feels good. So this is our shower stop for today and we're going to try to hit another hot springs tomorrow I think too. First time in Idaho's hot springs. Excited to try this out. It's been a while. We have our Flextail. Tiny shower and this is the uh the newer one. More power. Higher flow rate. All charged up. Ready to go. This will be our first ever high quality natural hot shower. Oh there we go. Oh that's a hot shower. Look at that. Unlimited hot water for a shower. Refreshed. Very fun. Time to go find a campsite. Let's do it. Just a little further down the river we came upon a campsite that in hindsight we probably should have just taken. Fire's still going. Man that is a sweet beach. Spot is right next to somebody else. We're kind of wondering if it'll be worth it. Update. We're in a campground. It's a great campground and we'll explain why we are actually here. It's been about two hours since we left the hot springs. Strike out after strike out on the dispersed camping. There is a ton of it which is amazing. Great spots along the river through this area. It's just Memorial Day weekend and it's super crowded and busy. It's a Saturday. What do you expect? It's a Saturday. Yep. So we were thinking okay we'll explore different forest roads and go up higher and six miles down a road there will be two spots and they're taken obviously. So that's kind of been the afternoon. Yeah. But we got super lucky on one of said really long forest service roads in the middle of nowhere we found a campground and we decided to just check it out and there are open spots. It's a beautiful campground and what's better is if you have the annual national parks pass America the Beautiful pass that counts for your fee. Never seen that before. Have you guys seen it? Let us know in the comments in Washington like you pay if you're at a campground. Yeah and I think it's on federal like federal land like national forest lands. Yeah. They'll do it in Idaho. If it's state land I don't think it applies but. Anyway I'd gotten to the point where we were between a pin we saved in case we needed it. It wasn't the best but it was a spot. Yeah. Or we keep going and that could have been two, three, four hours. We could end up sleeping at a RV. At a KOA or something and been miserable but you know. Yeah or just along the interstate. So this was a perfect find. We got lucky. This is nice. Supposed to be done working today. I'll do it. Oh yeah. Oh what do you think? About three and a half feet. Six inches to a foot. Okay Idaho what are these bugs? As soon as we open our galley they're everywhere. I don't know if they like the wood although they're on the countertop. Like what are these things? They don't bite or anything. They're just annoying. Every time we open the galley they're everywhere on everything. Well this is pretty neat. Looks like we have a pathway down to the creek we've been following all day finding jack ---- for campsites. Oh yeah. Score. Uh yeah. Oh that's chilly. Fresh. That is a nice little pool there. It was a little earlier in the day I'd be in it but we did already get our swimming in today. It's after six. We need to unwind. It's been a long one but a good one. Well another night at camp. Another campfire. We are milking the fire season as long as we can and we have some crumbs left in our Frito chip bag and you know I've always wanted to test these as a fire starter so uh let's give it a shot. You know people struggle with fires because they don't get their kindling prepped. That was my chair. You know somebody's gonna make a comment like did you hear Emily rip rip ass at oh we're leaving that 25 minutes in or I don't know how long this video is gonna be. We're leaving that in. We'll leave it in. What's the theory that there's just so much oil or something on these? Yeah I'm gonna say it's the oil. Oh there we go. Okay. They're lighting. Oh the suspense. It kind of smells interesting. Smells like burned corn oil. It smells kind of good. If we were doing this in the rain I'm gonna say no. So basically the Fritos held the flame just long enough for you to get the kindling on because they're not the Fritos are not on fire now. This is the wood right. They're still burning at the bottom. They're just very slow. I just don't see any on my side my angle. They don't catch quickly but they seem to be holding enough flame and heat to get the wood going. So yeah they passed the test. They work. I would say if you're in a situation you need to light a fire with Fritos make sure you have the giant scoops. So one thing we love about this trailer is we can get it level in any terrain and the ground clearance is so high I didn't have to go over those rocks. I just went over those rocks if that makes sense. And this time we had to jack it up so high on the back left corner that we needed an extra rock. One so we didn't have to unwind the jack forever but two we needed as much jack as possible to get it level so we just threw a rock underneath there. We backtracked just a few minutes up the road to reach Kirkham hot springs for one more hot springs experience before we left Idaho. Just like at Bonneville the hot water flows from the hillside down towards the river where it mixes in different pools. Best camp shower in the history of camping. This one was a little bit better than Bonneville just because you could stand and sand underneath a hot shower and access to the river right there too. You can hot and cold plunge all day long. Yes, best hair wash ever camping. There was a lot of other pools you kind of just have to climb over a lot of rocks to get to the other pools and there were people in them so we didn't we didn't really wander too far but yeah it was nice and hot where we were. Matt got a river cold plunge in. What a great way to start the day and end this video. If you enjoyed this one make sure to subscribe so you catch us on the next. All right see you later. Thank you for watching this leg of our road trip. If you enjoyed it make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next. We also have a playlist linked here if you want to binge the other videos in this series. We have one more night of camping before returning to Washington and it's a fun one.