Idaho gets no respect. If you were to list the eleven western states in the order that ‘you’ would like to visit them, I’d wager that Idaho would be last. With the exception of Sun Valley, Idaho has no major marquis attraction: no destination casinos, no national parks, no famous mountain peaks.
I recently flew to Boise, Idaho to visit friends. In my single days, I rented the mother-in-law quarters on a property on Belvedere Island in Marin County, and I commuted to the Financial District in San Francisco by ferryboat – a great place to meet people. Bruce and Cheryl, who finally settled in Boise, were at the hub of a terrific group of people I met on the boat who remain dear friends today. The main topic on that boat was nearly always weekend plans, and each Friday – like a troop of vagabonds – we lit out for the mountains, rivers, or beaches.
The city of Boise sits on the high desert at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The only hint of the nearby alpine country is the outline of conifer trees along the high horizon to the north. Bruce scooped me up at the airport, and we headed straight out of town. In a matter of minutes, we rose above the open terrain around Boise into the mountains, pines, and the Payette River raging alongside Highway 55.
We arrived in McCall on Payette Lake, a lovely resort town with no hordes to sully the peace of the mountains. As we used to thirty years ago, we hit the trail as though we were on the clock. The huge peninsula that pokes into Payette Lake is 1,500-acre Ponderosa State Park. We walked a four-mile loop to the end of the peninsula and back past marshes boldly flowered with species new to me. Farthest out, at the tip of the peninsula, the high overview looked back across the full length of the lake: fabulous in the evening light.
But the best was yet to come. The next morning, after breakfast in a local café, we set out to hike one of Bruce’s favorite loops in the mountains above McCall. Twenty minutes from town, up a twisting road through Payette National Forest, we parked by a raucous mountain stream at 6,300 feet.
The trail followed the stream and after a mile, we were at Boulder Lake. Like our winter, the winter in Idaho was light and Bruce assumed that our hiking loop was clear of snow. To his surprise, virtually every step beyond the lake would be over hard packed snow, but the going was easy and the country was magnificent.
The scene above us was a beautiful alpine landscape of granite, snow, and conifers. We climbed and climbed until we reached our high point beneath 8,300-foot Jughandle Mountain. What a setting! I felt like I was days into the backcountry, but we were only a few miles from town.
Now, gravity was our friend. Down we went past Louie Lake, back to the car, and back to town.
When we returned to Boise, everything that charmed me about McCall was true of Boise as well. In a striking way, McCall and Idaho remind me of our south county communities. In both places, outsiders, unfamiliar and ignorant, think locals live in a backwater somewhere on the edge of the civilized world. On one hand, we want to tell them how wrong they are, but I prefer to just smile, say nothing, and keep the secret. After my recent trip, I know that is what they are doing in Idaho.
