If you know us personally or have read our recent 6-month recap, then you’ll know we had a lot of travel planned for this summer: 2 weeks in England, 1 week in the Dominican Republic, and tons of trips back home to celebrate family weddings. All of these trips have been put on pause and we don’t plan on leaving our state any time soon. So when some friends of ours reached out to see if we wanted to go camping we jumped on the opportunity and ran away to the mountains for a few days.
Beaver Creek Campground
Camping in Southwest Idaho can be interesting, to say the least. With the majority of the state’s population residing in the Boise area, a large portion of them escape to the mountains every weekend. Campground reservations for the summer are booked solid starting in February so 10 to 1 you’ll need to go backpacking or if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to grab a first-come, first-serve spot. But once you’ve claimed a site for yourself, it’s all easy going from there.
Our goal was to snag a first-come, first-serve spot, and to do that we left on a Wednesday morning. We first stopped at Bull Trout Lake with no luck and then went onto Beaver Creek where we found a great spot right near the bustling water.
Wednesday
Within 15 minutes of arriving at our campsite, a Ranger stopped by to update us on some local news. There had been multiple bear sightings over the past couple of days. *Hayle instantly fears for her life* There had been some campers that left food out and the young 2-3-year-old bear had kept returning looking for more. Thankfully we were told it was non-aggressive and just wanted some good ole human food. We were extra careful about how long we left things out and made sure everything was packed up at night or when we left during the day.
We also experienced some thunderstorms Wednesday night. Which is absolutely terrifying when you’re sleeping in a tent next to tall trees and a creek. Between the potential of a bear and the Thunderstorms, I didn’t get much sleep that night. Waking up the next morning, our tent did get a little waterlogged, but nothing was too soaked. Sean’s book took a bit of a hit, but we were able to get it dried out!
Stanley Lake
On Thursday and Friday, we spent a handful of hours hanging out on the shores of the beautiful Stanley Lake. Both days, we were surprised to see how few people were in the area – we expected it to be much busier than it was!
Thursday
We packed our camp chairs and books and headed roughly 20 minutes South to Stanley lake. We parked ourselves right on the shoreline with our own little beach area. Our friend had brought their dog and we spent a while throwing sticks into the lake for him which he thoroughly enjoyed.
We had never been to Stanley Lake before so we were thrilled to see such a great view – nothing beats a good mountain lake. And this one is a good one.
Friday
We enjoyed our time at Stanely lake so much that we decided to go back again. This time we hiked around the lake a bit and also did some light kayaking. Sean absolutely loved the kayak and was thrilled to paddle around the lake.
Heading Home Back To Boise
All good trips have to come to an end and after three days it was time to pack up camp and head back home.
Saturday
The two of us decided to pack up on Saturday after breakfast and head back home so we could have a full day to relax on Sunday before heading back to work. We headed out around noon and fully enjoyed the beautiful drive back to Boise. Once home, we were able to unload and unpack everything from the car and get it all packed back up in our garage. Needless to say, we had a great trip and are dying to go camping again soon!
