St.Charles Bear Lake Idaho

The Northen part of Bear Lake is in Idaho and the Southern in is Utah, there are very few good beaches around the lake ,mostly they are muddy and not inviting, but the colors are incredible.

It was a labor day weekend and the place got trailers pulling in from all over the place, we got a nice full hookup spot on grass and WiFi connection for $35 per night.

Just passing the boarder to the South is the “big” city of Garden City, lots of restaurants,gas stations, city park and other small stores , Garden City is known to serve the best Raspberry Shakes and if you did not have it you were not in Garden City.

There is a great drive to a scenic over look on HWY 89 on the way to Logan UT,beautiful vistas and nice wooden house with huge properties are seen from the road.

At the end of the day on the way back to the C.G on BEAR Lake we saw not a BEAR but a MOOSE, a huge bull black MOOSE just standing and posing for us, what a great surprise.

Minnetonka Cave is at the end of St. Charles paved Canyon Road, an hour and half and $8 will buy a guided tour of this cave, I must say that it has 9 rooms but not a lot of geological activity is going there and it looks more like a huge rock cave than formations of stalagmite and stalactite.

After visiting caves in W. Virginia and Carlsbad Cave in N.M it was a kind of disappointment.

It is 40 degrees in the cave that has many steps , so be prepared.

A beautiful Bloomington Lake is located at the end of no other than Bloomington Canyon Road ( a dirt gravel narrow road), a short walk from the parking lot leads to this scenery place, excellent for families to swim,canoe and hike.

Irwin Idaho

Irwin Idaho was chosen to be our next stop for the views and the fantastic waterfall on the Snake river.

We pulled out from our C.G in Ashton towards the scenic route Hwy 32 and made a stop in Driggs that turned to be a very nice little town.

Before reaching the Hwy we got on a road that was under contraction with no sign alerting drives about it and surly enough we sunk in the soft surface....luckily enough the workers on the road pulled us to the top and explained that they did not want to stop the traffic as the detour would be too long.... the rest of the day was much better.

Approaching the Titones from the West we saw a Osprey nest and due to the “no traffic “ we could stop with the 5W on the road and take a few shots of two

different nests.

The C.G has full hook ups with good WiFi, no restrooms ,fire rings or picnic tables but it was fine for us as we are self contained.

The views are just stunning especially when the sun got low with long shadows beautiful colors and reflection from the houses windows, hard to keep the eyes away...

The Waterfalls are amazing but the best way to see them is from a boat that we did not have , so here are some pictures from the land side. It was freezing at night but nice during the day wearing just a jacket, hope it stayes like this.

Ashton Idaho

Ashton Idaho was chosen to be our next stop because of the great location to falls,West Yellowstone and the Island Park area.

We settled in a Rv park attached to a golf course, the sites were large ,on grass with full hookups and clean private toilet /shower rooms, but to pick the WiFi we had to go to the offices , and that is why I am “late” to post….

A day trip to Sheep Falls ended to be a day trip to Cave Falls, the signs on these dirt / Gravel roads are so confusing that drove on gravel accordingly to the signs to Sheep Falls that any 2w drive truck can go, well we got to the lake but hardly made it back up the main road, so before heading back we enjoyed the place having a picnic .

We were not going to drive back without seeing a waterfall...so we to a turn and enjoyed the Caves Falls at the West side of Yellowstone, and they were impressive.

As we did not have enough of seeing falls we headed on the next day to Mesa Falls , the upper ones and the lower ones, this time – no gravel roads, thank you.

There is a visitor center in the Upper Falls and a round trip trail to see the incredible falls and we were lucky to catch a rainbow that only added to scenery.

Next morning when we woke up It was raining but that did not stop us for making a great scenic drive to Island Park ,Great Springs, West Yellowstone and Targhee Pass area that included few lakes.

West Yellowstone is a tourist trap but a nice tourist trap,we strolled along the main drag,saw a beautiful old inn and ended eating in a local burger nice place, I only did one mistake I did not check if they are allowed to serve beer and meat with out beer is not the same as it would be with beer...

After the food with no beer we had some espresso with ice cream that completed our gastronomic part of the trip and we headed North to the Pass and the lakes.

The scenery is exceptional , the combination of the dark sky with lakes and mountains was just perfect , add to that empty roads and you got a great ride.

On one of the stops called Tilted Lake that was created by an earthquake actually “pushed” some cabins into the lake and they still can be seen floating in the water.

On the way back we stopped at so called “ghost Town” that is now a fishing Camp with a RV park and a restaurant.

A real nice place with no cell phones or WiFi , just fly fishing and stories....I love these places especially when they say that they serve the best breakfast West of the Mississippi, after he told me what they serve I would sure end up in the E.R. eating it- Bacon,potatoes,gravy,pancakes and ham...what is wrong with fruit and yugort???