Compensations of being in Idaho?

Looks like I’m going to be in Idaho for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, there are many of these fellows up here, at least in the summer. I sit and look out my sliding glass door watching them chase one another off the feeders. Now that it’s October, they’re all gone, of course, but I’m already looking forward to next April when, hopefully, they’ll be back in force.

Ironwood Forest National Monument 1-26

Ironwood Forest National Monument might be even prettier than Sonoran Desert National Monument. It is, however, a lot more crowded as well. A person who makes a serious effort to find the quietest campsite available might still encounter two or three other people a week. None of them are camping, but they do drive by occasionally.

The other issue with Ironwood is plane noise. They seem to fly over constantly. It’s beautiful, though. I stayed there off and on for several weeks in late 2025 and early 2026. Then I got really, really sick and had to run back to Idaho...the first time I’ve been in Idaho in the winter for 12 years. What a weather shock!

Sunrise at one of my campsites in Ironwood National Monument

Here’s the same view at sunset

Sonoran Desert National Monument 12-25

It’s a shame I only took one photo in Sonoran Desert National Monument because it’s one of my favorite places on earth. I’ve camped near Tabletop Mountain (wilderness area south of the freeway) a couple of times, and camped there in late 2025/early 2026 also, but for some reason took no photos this time around. I also checked out the portion of the monument that’s north of the freeway…this portion has been closed to camping for several years as I recall, which is why I’d never been there before, but it was open in 2025. It was absolutely great. The whole Sonoran Desert is great. If you like deserts, the Sonoran is definitely up there with the best. I went pretty far in, so I camped a couple of weeks and saw exactly zero other people. Here’s the view of the early sun from one of my campsites.

In the backwoods of Arizona near Agua Caliente 11-25

Next stop: nowhere in particular. By this point, I was just wandering out into the desert, finding deserted dirt roads going who-knows-where and hanging out for a week or two. All I can say for sure is that the sunsets and sunrises were amazing. I did pass by the Painted Rock Petroglyph campground on the way in and out. It seemed like a pleasant spot but was pretty crowded. I stopped by to empty my composting toilet and was confronted by the campground host, who has had problems with people making a terrible mess in the pit toilet while emptying. I can relate. I would not enjoy cleaning up other peoples’ toilet messes. Fortunately, I was able to reassure her with a clean inspection.

Really great rock in the early sun

It’s worth dealing with some overcast days to get a sunrise like this one….

And now, actually IN Sheephole Valley Wilderness 11-25

This was the first time I’d ever been to Sheephole Valley, and I loved it. The camping spot was somewhat less than ideal. It was maybe a hundred yards off a road used occasionally by large trucks…possibly traveling to a mine of some sort? But there weren’t enough of them to be really bothersome, and the views were stellar. The hiking was great, too. I didn’t see any trails, but you could walk across the desert toward some hidden valleys that were quiet and lovely.

It was overcast one afternoon and the light played over the mountains and dunes in a magical way.

On the Way to Sheephole Valley 11-25

Who doesn’t love Joshua trees? Nobody I know. And if they don’t love Joshua trees then I don’t really need to know them, because Joshua trees are wonderful. I was driving from Ibex Pass to the Sheephole Valley wilderness when I saw a couple of views I just couldn’t resist. The first was a desert rock accented artfully by Joshua trees. The second was layers of mountains receding into the distance.

I realize Joshua trees are just weird, giant Yucca plants, but there’s something charming about them.

Ibex Pass 11-25

I guess I found it hard to leave Death Valley NP because my next campsite, Ibex Pass, hovered on the edge of the park. Ibex pass’s only claim to fame is an old talc/soapstone mine. Plus the fact that you can see the Ibex Dunes in the distance. Oh, and let’s not forget to include the fact that nobody goes there…I was alone for my entire stay, which suited me just fine.

On the way from Death Valley to Ibex Pass, I found this pullout with these lovely yellowish dirt formations. If I remember correctly, this is actually the beginning of a hike, but I don’t recall where it goes.

Here’s the sunrise from my campsite at Ibex Pass

These are the Ibex Dunes as seen from Ibex Pass

And this is the world-famous Ibex talc mine. It has to be famous in SOMEONE’S world, right?

Wildrose, Death Valley National Park 11-25

After Panamint Dunes, I checked out Wildrose Campground. Which is free! My kind of campground! Unfortunately, the drinking water had been capped off, so I couldn’t refill there. The shortest road in (Trona-Wildrose) was closed due to flood damage, and possibly the campground was quieter than usual as a result…for NP campground, it was nice and quiet, with most folks except myself staying only one night.

When I left, I decided to drive up to see the charcoal kilns. Unbeknownst to me, I ran over something on the way to the kilns that punched a hole in one of my tires and had to stop and inflate it about 6 times before I made my way back to Stovepipe Wells where I could get some help.

Very cool cloud I saw while walking near Wildrose.

Wildrose Charcoal Kilns

Innards of a kiln

Panamint Dunes, Death Valley NP 10-25

My next stop was in Death Valley National Park near Panamint Dunes. It turns out you can dispersed camp within many areas of the park for free, and Panamint Dunes is one of them. Once I drove in to a spot a few miles from the dunes, I camped for over a week in blissful solitude. Gosh, I LOVE the desert!!

On the way to the park, I saw this rainbow and just had to stop for a photo.

Here’s sunrise at my campsite

And here are the dunes. I couldn’t walk far enough to actually reach them but snapped this from a distance.

This hill composed of cool rock striae was near my campsite

The cool rocks came in small versions as well.

Near Bishop, CA 10-25

After leaving the Black Rock, I headed south and west to the Sierra Nevada, one of the special places on earth. I camped near Bishop, but the views were so lovely on the way that I pulled over a couple of times to take photos.

Autumn in the Sierra traveling down US 395

This rock feature probably has a name. Unfortunately, I don’t know what it’s called. This was another stop on the way to Bishop.

Sunrise over the Sierra on the mesa outside Bishop

Clouds intertwined with the Sierra, again, from my campsite on the mesa.

Soldier Meadows Hot Springs 10/25

From Hart Mountain, I moved on to the Black Rock desert in northern Nevada, a place I’d never been before. I wound up at Soldier Meadows, but I initially planned to camp at Fox Homestead in High Rock Canyon. Yikes! I came within a hairsbreadth of getting stuck in the mud twice — in 4WD low — before I hit the canyon entrance and the sign saying “this is a really crappy road”. I had an inch of mud covering all my windows from spinning my wheels madly trying to get rolling after coming to a dead halt in deep mud and water, could see nothing, and my nerves were ragged from coming so close to getting stuck with no winch and no help.

In the canyon, mud ceased to be a problem, but the rocks were so bad I was limping along at 3 mph and bottomed out a couple of times. After 2 miles of this, I decided I wasn’t having any fun and I’d prefer to go somewhere else. Going back through the same two mud-pits was not an option…I wasn’t going to tempt fate again…so I drove out the other way, roughly east and south, and eventually found myself at Soldier Meadows Hot Springs, a place I was unaware existed. After arriving, I discovered that I had dropped two full gas cans off my rear rack somewhere along the way. But where? I had no clue. By that point, I’d been driving for hours.

Soldier Meadows is a gorgeous hot spring. I camped beside the pool in the photo below and enjoyed soaking even though I had to pay for it in mite bites. I hiked over to the main “campground” (really just some rough-and-ready campsites) near a creek that contained rock dams creating a series of pools. I didn’t go down to the creek, so I don’t know how hot the pools are, but they sure were pretty. It was clear that mud is sometimes an issue getting to these pools too, as the road in, dry at the time I was there, was torn up with deep ruts over a broad area where people had gone across a huge mud pit right where the road to the springs diverges from the road in from the east.

I drove out the eastern road and had no issues with traction or rocks, so I would recommend going in that way to any adventurous soul who wants to check out the springs.

Here’s the part of the Black Rock Desert I was camped in

Here’s the hot pool I camped near

Hart Mountain 9-24-25

After a stopover in Bonners Ferry, ID, I left for what will apparently be my last winter in the desert. I’m still in mourning over it. And because I didn’t anticipate that I wouldn’t be back, I didn’t record every moment and every inch of ground I covered. Too late to fix it now.

I started out in Steens Mountain, OR, for a week plus, hiking and getting back into the rhythm of being on the road, and then went over to Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge just because I love it so.

In August of 2024, there was a sizable fire in the refuge, and it’s definitely changed the hot springs campground for the worse. The loop along the creek was closed, and the loop in the valley near the main pool had been fenced into sites right on the road and right on top of each other. The pools are still gorgeous and amazing, though, so it’s still worth a visit. I enjoyed soaking and watching the moon rise.

New camping situation

Back in Ruby Hot Springs 6-13-25

It’s hard to resist Ruby Hot Springs when you’re in the neighborhood. The thing is, you’re almost never in the neighborhood because it’s out in the boonies and the road in is long and unpaved. But that’s a lot of what makes it so great…there’s almost nobody there. This year I saw nobody. The first time I came, when I stayed a couple of weeks, I saw one other person who camped for one night. So you basically get the whole place to yourself.

This year I drove in the back way, from the south, through Ruby Wildlife Refuge. There were about a billion mormon crickets in the refuge (you walked on them whether you wanted to or not…they covered the ground), and I don’t remember seeing a single one at Ruby Hot Springs. If I saw them, they were easily avoidable so they didn’t register.

It was later in the year than the last time I came, so the weather was hot and I only stayed a couple of days before moving up into the mountains. Unfortunately, I took no pictures up there. There were gorgeous flowers in bloom that I admired every time I hiked, so now I’m regretting not taking photos. But here’s one of the hot springs just to prove I was there.

Cleve Creek, NV 6-11-25

From Notch Peak, I went to Cleve Creek, an actual organized campground with actual organized campsites northeast of Ely. Fortunately, the fact that it’s organized and numbered doesn’t mean you have to pay for it…you don’t. That’s my kind of campground!

I’ve been wanting to check out Cleve Creek for 2 or 3 years, and now that I’ve been there I’m not sure why. It’s perfectly fine, but there are many perfectly fine places to camp in Nevada. I’m not sure Cleve Creek is materially better than many other spots, but I checked it off my bucket list anyway.

Here’s my final campsite at Cleve Creek…I moved in the middle of my stay. My first site was a gravel pad that would have been fabulous for a giant RV or trailer.

And here is Cleve Creek itself.

Near Notch Peak, UT 5-23-25

Unfortunately, I took no photos in Bears Ears NM, nor did I take any in Natural Bridges NM, where I went hiking for a day. Of course it was gorgeous in both places. After that, I made my way back west, stopping west of Delta near Notch Peak. The campsite wasn’t very attractive…lots of gravel and not much else…but the “road” continued on and dead-ended right before a very scenic area. I wasn’t hardy enough to drive it. Yes I have 4WD, but that doesn’t prevent you from slashing holes in your tires on spiky rocks. So I camped in gravel-ville and walked up to the scenic area instead.

The place I camped looked nothing like this. It had all the scenic charm of an industrial gravel pit.

On the right side of this photo there is sort of a froth of pointy rocks. Those are the type of rocks that carpeted the road between my campsite and this place. Tire-eaters!

Glen Canyon NRA 4-20-25

I didn’t stay in Glen Canyon, but I drove through on my way to Bears Ears National Monument and stopped to take this photo. How could I resist?

Near Globe 3-21-25

After spending plenty of time in southern Arizona, as usual, I decided to revisit the Globe/Lake Roosevelt area. It isn’t actually Globe, but Globe is where I go to get water and food before I head into this area, which is really west of Globe, across the Salt River, on the road toward Young. there are bluffs that overlook distant Lake Roosevelt and some great dispersed campsites among the bluffs. If you keep going across the ridge, you can camp in the trees, but I like to look out over the desert.

I got lucky this trip: a small herd of bighorn sheep wandered right into my campsite and hung out for a while.

Campsite on the bluffs above the Salt River

Lake Roosevelt in the distance

Great horns, right?

Here they all are. I have no idea what interests them in the fire pit, but they seem to like it.

Virgin River 11-2-24

After leaving Riparia, I wandered around Nevada for a while taking no photos, which is too bad. Nevada is a treasure. I spent time in Basin and Range National Monument, and then found my way down to the Virgin River near Double Negative, which consists of two trenches gouged into a mesa overlooking the Virgin River. I didn’t photograph it; it’s a pair of trenches that look like…well…trenches. You can see their trenchy goodness on Wikipedia if you’re so inclined. I found it mildly interesting. But I found the mesa itself quite lovely: basically a moonscape with a fabulous view of the river, as you can see below.

I camped here for two weeks and saw one other car brave enough to tackle the horrible road, which is “paved” with giant, sharp rocks. It was a bit nerve-wracking to drive, not because traction was an issue but because I feared I would flatten all four tires on the rocks. Fortunately, the distance back to a REAL road (unpaved but passable) wasn’t much, maybe a mile?

Right here at the bottom of the photo you can see the edge of Mormon Mesa. The ground then plunges 1,000 feet or so down to the river bank.

Looking up the river toward Mesquite. The reason I posted this, although it’s duplicative, is that I love the glowing sand in the distance on the left side of the photo.

Riparia, WA 9/15/24

After a brief stay in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, I again fled south for the winter. My first night was in Riparia, WA, on the Snake River. I’ve camped at several spots on the Snake, and each of them has been rather desolate. Riparia is just downriver from one of the zillions of dams on the Snake, so you can walk up and gaze at the dam if you’re so inclined. I, however, was looking down the river in the opposite direction, watching a fire who-knows-where.

You can see that the Snake is not exactly a garden spot, at least not this part of the Snake. I suppose that they call this place Riparia because there are a handful of actual trees here, which I can prove because the second photo shows some of them.

So here’s Riparia…a jungle compared with the rest of the Snake.

Organ Pipes 2/2/24

Well, I’m back to Organ Pipes NM again, this time in Arch Canyon. I didn’t pay to camp in OPNM itself. Instead, I disperse-camped on BLM land off of Bates Well Road (which traverses the north part of OPNM and eventually connects with the road to Cabeza Prieta NWR/Papago Well) and took day trips. We’ve skipped all the way to February of 2024…I took almost no photos in 2023, and not very many in 2024, either. But Arch Canyon is beautiful, and rates a photo or two, so here they are.