Incredible Idaho

[Music] Idaho is probably the most underrated state for Overland travel it has beautiful Rivers rugged mountains with Incredible fire Lookouts and some of the most remote areas in the lower 48 states it's not without its challenges though downed trees blocking trails are common so a chainsaw is a must if you go too early in the year or if there's been a harsh winter you're also likely to run into huge snow Banks blocking your way too late and the forest fires from irresponsible Campers or summer lightning storms will force you to turn around we were there in mid-july to take on the Idaho Back Country Discovery route and we're not sure what would lie ahead would the reports of lingering snow be accurate would our route be blocked by fires would we be clearing trees along all the trails and would I make it in the 10 days that I had welcome to the Idaho backcountry Discovery route from the mountains of Nevada we're actually just outside of Idaho just across the border we met up earlier got me Rob and I met up with Chris and Will from venture to Rome in the small town of jarbridge Nevada which is just in the middle of nowhere we met up at the Red Dog Saloon came up here into the mountains and we found just the most incredible campsite we're getting set up here tonight and bright and early tomorrow we're heading north into Idaho so I'll see you first thing tomorrow morning as we get started that night the wind kept us up but it couldn't dial our excitement for what lay ahead the next morning we're up early making our way back down the mountain to garbage has a tiny gas station on the edge of town so he stopped for the first fill-up of the trip since it's so remote we figured it would be really expensive I think it may be six bucks a gallon sorry I did my math wrong it's 7.86 a gallon as it turns out it wouldn't actually be the most expensive fuel stop of the trip but it still hurt our wallets we explored the small town that was the site of one of the West's last gold rushes stopped in the Inn for some ice cream and then loaded up to head along Jarvis Canyon into Idaho are you ready to go [Music] [Music] [Music] From the Canyon we climbed up onto the inside desert where temperatures started to climb the car says that is of 100 degrees outside [Music] after 80 miles of fast Dusty desert roads we reached Glenn's Ferry is where you want to eat Chris you know it's never been like a very fancy place but it was always you know you know we just went through Glenn's Ferry and our goal now is to get up into the mountains it's 104 degrees down here we want to get up somewhere a little cooler and try and find a place to camp through the day the temperature kept on Rising I hope we have a new Hawk degrees we hit the dusty roads again hey and the temperature Rose even more moment there we hit 100 degrees we had been making our way over the mount Bennett Hills and as we came down the other side we caught our first glimpse of the Anderson Reservoir I've never approached the dam this way it's so pretty as we approached the water the temperature began to drop 87 degrees is I'm liking that I'm liking the direction the temperature it wasn't just the water or the time of day that was causing it to cool we were climbing in elevation Glenn's Ferry sits at about two and a half thousand feet and we were making our way up to almost 8 000. as we drove the mountains started to come into view and the scenery got more and more spectacular around every corner [Music] [Music] foreign guys that's a good good sign [Music] 76 degrees guys oh I'm getting to the Views I'm on the back side of this hill now wow you can already tell this is going to be a pretty campsite we have another beautiful spot for camp tonight this one technically isn't on the Idaho Back Country Discovery route one of the mountain roads is closed apparently for a few more days from what I understand there's no snow up there but it's just a seasonal closure that they leave until mid-july so we're out here there's another one that will already knew and I'll see if the trip keeps going like this that'd be fantastic Just Killer Camp spots every night I'm okay with that so tonight we're all set up ready for Camp uh Chris that's pulled out stuff for dinner I think he said he's doing Korean something chicken maybe some kind of chicken curry I don't know something with chicken so I've got that to look forward to [Music] foreign [Music] this ended up being a beautiful campsite and I've got these great views all the way around there wasn't a breath of wind and no one drove past us while we were sleeping tonight's campsites can be a little bit different we're actually going to head down to Deadwood Reservoir and the the purpose of that is really to well to give the kids a place to play swim in the water it's also going to be a little bit of a short day because it's not too far away from us with the detour of the previous day we had to take a look at the butler bdr map to plan out how to get back on track so you're ready to get back in our plan now is to follow the Boise River back to the bdr route and then from there we'll cut through the mountains to Loman and then from Loman we're hoping to get to Deadwood that section is about 150 miles foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] I guess it was a cable car across the river there oh yeah those are for uh for mining I think we should try and send one of the kids across back on the Discovery route it was time for us to continue North climbing the first of the day's many mountain passes foreign [Music] we've come up here to one of those beautiful campsites that Idaho seems to have plenty of which is views in every single Direction behind me down at the bottom was the river that we were following you can see the mountain chains and we've just come up across up the hills and ended up here and while it would be a great place to camp but this is just entirely too early in the day in fact it's lunchtime so will has set up his uh rugged bound ostrich ring awning and I'm kind of jealous I wish I had one well I do but it's sitting at home back in Kentucky waiting for me because it came in the mail after I left so I'm gonna use that get some shade eat and then continue over the mountains to the reservoir foreign we had made it less than a third of the way to Deadwood Reservoir between breakfast and lunch so we're trying to put some miles in we're moving fast but we soon hit a roadblock oh that's interesting road closure 285 Banner Creek due to road failure so the sign obviously says Road closed you've got uh unsafe travel conditions I'm assuming the road was washed out but when you read the little closure order here this was signed December 25th 2019 and actually expired about a year and a half ago so according to this the road is open but it's one of those things you probably have to call and check and uh we don't have any service so we can't call and chances are even though it's been two and a half years since the road was washed out and closed it probably still hasn't been fixed so we're not even going to bother we're just gonna stick with what it says here and do a little detour it's not too far about a mile back that way and then head around onto the pavement when we checked the Boise National forest website later there was no mention of any closure and banner Creek is shown as open The Detour ended up being almost exactly the same distance but the paved roads saved us a lot of time we picked up the route again and some more gas as we reached the town of Loman out seven a gallon from there it was still almost 60 miles to Camp following windy roads over a series of mountain chains [Music] so one of the things my truck has is a little thing that tells me the current speed limit and uh it says the speed limit here is currently 75 so if you guys would speed up a little bit please [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign as we dropped off a lost Mountain Road the reservoir came into view it looked incredibly inviting we were exhausted and couldn't wait to find a place to camp it's the first thing this morning I said today is going to be a short day and apparently we underestimated the backcountry Discovery road because it's been a very long day not that the trails are difficult they're just very very windy so it's just a little bit slow going and it's uh it's kind of late in the evening now that we just got here at the reservoir uh but we found ourselves a fairly secluded spot here and then about 100 yards that way is the reservoir so we're gonna get dinner going and we can go over there and uh go in the water the kids can go in the water and we can take a rest because uh we're all very tired [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] well it's definitely not the worst campsite I've ever stayed at there are quite a lot of mosquitoes last night so I ended up covering up basically from head to toe to stay out of those um but the kids definitely enjoyed staying here they're able to go off and play in the water for like two hours so that's a really cool spot for that so today just got packed up and the goal for this part of the route is to make it to Yellow Pine apparently it's a fairly quick and easy road but we also thought the same thing yesterday so we'll have to see how it goes uh but apparently there is a ghost town up there that we can go check out which should be a lot of fun [Music] foreign 40 50 miles an hour because this is just so easy [Music] foreign [Music] beautiful in here the ghost towns I think are my my route says that they are eight miles away from yellow pine will had been talking about the ghost town all day I'm a huge fan of ghost towns and abandoned mines so I'd been looking forward to it as I pulled up I realized something was wrong uh here's the town site um it says Town site if it's what I think it is it's a huge Ghost Town it wasn't we may have had our expectations set a little high for this ghost town if you can call it that uh there are a bunch of signs saying that this is the former Town site this open area behind me and having walked around and looked around there's very little evidence there was ever a town here in fact this is the only thing that I've found that even suggests that people once lived or that there are even buildings here once uh so don't recommend this one uh there are definitely better ones out there at one time there was the town of stib night which was home to thousands of miners today it's just a field you can still view the old mining pit and a couple of structures from a distance and although we didn't know it at the time further up the mountain is the Cinnabar Ghost Mine which still has dozens of structures in relatively good shape it's likely this is the town that Will was thinking of uh but now we're gonna head down into the town of yellow pine where we're gonna meet up with some of uh Chris and Will's family yellow pine is a tiny village deep in the Idaho mountains as of the 2010 census they had a population of just 32 people right in the center of town is yellow pine General store where we would be meeting up with everyone it was also one of the key stops for gas on our route we are at the yellow pine Country Store and this is one of our planned fuel stops it's about a hundred miles to the next gas station and unfortunately they did not get their shipment of gas in this week so they are limiting you to two gallons of gas Chris has 103 miles of range before those two gallons are put in and Will is at 93 miles of range so it's really tight thankfully in the tundra you know I've got bigger fuel tanks I've got about 200 miles I also brought plenty of spare gas that I'm willing to share with them if they end up needing it because we've got those armadillo bags in the back so those are five gallons each these things are great because they're flexible they can expand and contract as necessary unlike you know like Roto packs they expand they leak you've got to vent them so plenty of fuel in here nice and safe while we were waiting we spotted a clearing up on the mountain overlooking yellow pine that looked like it'd have a cool spot to camp we asked in the store they said we'd have no problems getting there [Music] it wasn't far but it was Steep and narrow there were spots where my tires were right on the edge and others where will had to clear rocks logs and branches that were sitting across the road there's a pretty tight spot up here with a uh a log in the road I think I might just jump out real fast and make it a little bit wider for you Rob [Music] thank you probably here back it's going to be a three-point turn at least back up here that's really tight it's going to take uh backing around I'm going to go up it and then uh I'll surface the spotter that's gonna be fun in this the tight switchbacks were challenged even in the Jeeps which all required three point tons the much wider and much longer Tundra took a little more planning but it made it through foreign [Music] eventually we didn't reach the top but we found another clearing that was good enough I bet we've already burned those two gallons this is camp for tonight we've got a not quite level spot up here on the side of the mountain got a mine I guess an old mine just over there it's probably why the road exists some kind of oil tanker fuel tank or something down there and then views you got mountains over that way the valley over behind me there so not a bad spot a little hot but uh it should cool down quickly up here the things happen so tonight we're gonna have dinner uh am I distracting you I'm sorry no no so yeah yeah thanks Rob thanks appreciate that yeah and tomorrow we start section three which is from gosh where is it it's from yellow pine Elk City super Wiggly squiggly lines on the map and we don't have a lot of gas yeah that's right so we use up our two our two gallon allotment getting up here we're hoping they'll give us another two gallons tomorrow two gallons a day per person hopefully so we're not just trying to pose for Instagram we actually needed to get the rigs on that high of a stack of rocks just to level them out there's my rig there's Chris's rig this is just so we can sleep tonight and let me show you Rob's rig robs is just as bad it's pretty safe to say where we're camping is not level here's Rob's rig I mean it's pretty ridiculous but the good news is we got everything level [Music] foreign [Music] this morning we had a great breakfast of scrambled eggs and we were packing up getting ready to head back down the trail we are going to be a little behind today just because I guess it's at least an hour and a half to get back down from here just because it's such a tight Trail but that's okay because I think we had a really good spot up here very pretty spot and we really enjoyed ourselves coming up so uh we're gonna get packed up and start heading back down the mountain with uh Convoy of five vehicles so Jim this uh hairpin right here will had to do as a three-point turn so I will probably be a 27 point turn on our way back down we started wondering if they'd let will and Chris buy some more gas in yellow pine mine says 44 miles be mine just says low fuel thankfully they did but I later found out that they paid nine dollars a gallon for the privilege [Music] this is a convoy everybody [Music] uh sorry Rob you're the only non-jeep [Music] foreign [Music] foreign shaded spot in the forest and while we were in the General Store in yellow pine I noticed they had two cans of Clamato tomato and clam clam and it's something that will and Chris have been talking about they saw me try it on video it's not not horrible and talked about how gross this sounded so of course I had to buy them some I've got it in the fridge here I'm gonna take it over to them it's for you what is this Clamato my favorite thankfully they are I mean Unfortunately they only had two in the store so I couldn't get one for myself [Music] I don't know I don't know what the word is for just like it's it's like um clams and tomato and celery and I got to tell you that is not a good combination so I'm gonna I'm gonna pull a Rob and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go politely put this down on the tailgate table [Music] [Music] got some uh overhead obstacles here hey Will is Rob going to be able to get underneath that I don't think Rob's any taller than we are I am and I didn't hello well a quick trim and we were on our way over the mountain [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] yes I'm just gonna put it in four high I think looking good Kate [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] after being at the back of the pack all day I had a thick layer of dust on my windshield as we pulled into camp for the night do you believe this Campground is ours and nobody's there that is what I like to hear we've found ourselves a beautiful spot to camp just on the South Fork of the Salmon River it's actually one of those Forest Service campgrounds but there's absolutely no one here because we are in the middle of nowhere a really long way from the nearest town it's just all rough unpaved roads the whole way so got the whole place to ourselves which is fantastic uh also here nice and early one thing we've had on this trip is a lot of late arrivals like we're getting into Camp kind of late in the evening so I'm happy you know it's early in the day beautiful weather completely mosquito free and the best thing is there's some good patches of the river that the kids can go play in [Music] foreign [Music] this morning is an early start there's lots of sleepy faces around me backing up the tents so we've got to get to McCall by take by noonish so that uh everyone that joined us a couple of days ago can leave and basically get back to work on Monday so we've got about 60 miles to get to McCall I'm gonna go ahead and fill up my extra gas it's like about 40 miles left in my range that went pretty easy I did spill a little bit of it I think some leaked a little bit around the spout here I dribbled down a little bit but that was fairly easy fairly painless now we've got another what 60 miles range 70 miles range something like that unless you do Trails like we did yesterday then I've got like another five miles range I later found out that I hadn't screwed the spout on properly will and Chris filled up with the last of their spare Fuel and we set out over the last mountain range before McCall [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] it's a 509 miles after airing down we're finally airing up again as we've reached our first significant portion of pavement here uh we're just outside of well somewhere between Warren and Bergdorf and it's all paved all the way out to McCall uh where we're gonna head over restock drop the kids off and get a lot more gas hopefully a little bit cheaper gas than it was you know way out here hey Rob that's a car wash not a shoe wash [Music] we are back on the Idaho backcountry Discovery route and we're just airing down after going into town because we've probably got several hundred more miles until we hit any kind of significant amount of pavement it's nice just to get a more comfortable ride I was also able to refill all of the fuel bags so I've got plenty of range for about 500 miles of range and I only had to pay like five dollars and 25 cents which is still awful but much better than the nine dollars it was over in yellow pine we set off again getting some miles in And discussing some of the more important modifications would add it to the vehicles Chris do you have a Revere Overland patch I actually have two one for each car how about you I I just have one [Music] you guys were coming up on this bus oh wow that's really cool the sign of the side of the road said not suitable for passenger vehicles and they I guess they didn't read that sign so don't come up here with your bus because you'll end up Stuck like this person there's some proof that Overland bound sticker or patches it's not going to help you so we're about to come up to what I believe is called the French Creek grade which is some look like a girl likes to be some pretty wicked switchbacks wow that's beautiful [Music] [Music] [Music] and actually that corner you just passed it looks like there might be a little campsite out in the end there now it's massively overgrown it's covered in grass like knee high grass we should have brought our over Landing lawn mowers you gotta be careful what you say on these open Channel radios anyone could be listening and steal that idea from you somebody is listening in the over Landing lawnmower is my [Music] at the bottom of the grade we met up with the Salmon River and started looking for an empty campsite by the water thank you I think we got very lucky with camp tonight we're driving along the beautiful lower Salmon River we noticed this tiny little Trail going off the right hand side of the road we almost missed it actually uh it's only because we stopped to bring the Drone in that we spotted it and at the bottom of that little Trail is this our campsite it's not a very big spot it's just enough room for our three vehicles and even then I'm not quite level but like I say we're right on the river which is perfect because it's like 100 degrees it is really hot obviously I'm sweating uh so what we're gonna do is what obviously get set up and then head down a tiny little private beach that we've got down there right on the river and cool off [Music] touch [Music] [Music] stop having the same conversation and get myself [Music] can't take me away just change the stations [Music] okay [Music] this ended up being a really nice campsite it may even be one of my favorite campsites from this trip so far it doesn't necessarily have those wide open views that I usually look for or Cliff edges that I like to camp on but it's still a really pretty spot right here on the river and we really enjoyed sitting in sand last night with our toes in the sand while we were grilling our barbecue ribs interestingly I think we're right on the edge of a time zone here because I set my alarm for eight o'clock this morning woke up got up at eight o'clock and by the time I came down here at seven o'clock so something's going on but today we are gonna try and make it we want to at least make it to Elk City and try and make it onto the Magruder Corridor Magruder Road it's one of those things that's really hard to judge though like we don't know what conditions that the roads are gonna be like they could be narrow and windy going up and down mountains which guess it's gonna be slower but it could be wide open in which case we make it way further [Music] thank you it looks like we're going to cut up into these Mounds here in just a second I think we're gonna drop this dirt road and very very shortly [Music] so you guys I heard there's a ghost town up here along this route somewhere um I think maybe there's a cemetery or something and like some some structures anyway let's just keep our eyes out for it I think it'd be really cool to stop if it's actually there oh yeah I love ghost towns and uh hopefully this one's actually like it goes town and not just like a Ghost Field [Music] so many downed trees but it looks like they've all been cleared well I might need a spot actually okay I'll be right there actually I'm thinking I need a chainsaw as we're coming through the forest to the trails getting Tighter and Tighter and a lot of places the trees have been cut like this one that's next to me here and they've been cut so it's just wide enough for the full-size truck to get through uh however with the rooftop tent going on with all the stuff I've got on the roof uh some of the stuff's a little low hanging like this one so we're gonna have to get the chainsaw out and cut which I know will is super excited for he loves using this chainsaw just stopping real quick to cut a branch pretty sure this is an anti-tundra measure Rob think so I'm gonna file a complaint well oh there those are widowmakers right there probably the sooner we get out of here the better how about we get the heck out of we knocked this down and cut it [Music] so this is the dust you guys have been dealing with [Music] foreign [Music] of trees there that fell down [Music] [Music] I don't really know which way to go here there's a road called quicksand that's one of Joe's it may not have been wise I've got a thinking feeling about this [Music] oh oh Rob looks like he's stuck in the mud I'm just switching to live quite a sticky situation is way deeper than it looks I don't know I it might be worse now that you've gone through it and tore it up this is making excuses in case the Jeep gets stuck in the Toyota didn't I'm doing no such thing no problem rear locked for low looks like we are in Florence Florence was settled in 1861 after the discovery of gold and was described as the roughest place in the west with some Infamous residents such as the outlaw Cherokee Bob Talbot according to one Oregon newspaper murder was so common in the town that when a man is shot people hardly turn around to see what is the matter one diary describes a typical Sunday where quarrels at the gaming tables were settled with a revolver so Florence Ghost Town isn't huge but there are a few structures remaining out here that you can come check out it just blows my mind though that people would live out here so far away from civilization it would be driving all day to get out here and we're gonna drive all day to get down to well down to Elk City it's just so far but of course for some people you know the thought of living away from civilizations probably very appealing and of course there's gold in these Hills so uh I think some people are up here just trying to get rich quick it wasn't all bad in Florence the town was the site of many of Idaho's firsts it had the first Public School the first public library and the first state road it was that state road that we took to leave Florence heading east [Music] oh yeah that's pretty impressive man my Jeep is definitely not rolling over like that yeah I'll see you guys later and he's off we just reached some paved road on the 221 and it's paved almost all the way into Elk City from here I think it's about 15 miles of paved and it's like a small stretch of three four miles of unpaved and then back on the paved again all the way into Elk City so we're airing up again uh just to save our tires you know squealed around a couple of Corners a big time to get some air in them the drive to Elk City was 65 miles following the beautiful Clearwater River we've just made it through Elk City and back out onto unpaved roads so we're airing down again it was a beautiful drive coming all the way through to Elk City quite a long way quite a long drive but absolutely beautiful coming alongside the river there and then Elk City where I would stop off um Chris and will gassed up again a little expensive so I decided I'd wait until we get out towards Derby or Missoula before I fill up which will be probably close to the edge of the range of the tundra but it got extra fuel so we'll be all right but now once we've added down we're gonna head up onto the Magruder Road where we're gonna start looking for a place to Camp because we are we're all exhausted it's been a long day we're really tired [Music] the Magruder Road connects Idaho and Montana sandwiched between two Wilderness areas that have over 3.7 million Acres of undeveloped land unfortunately as we climbed it the green forests fell away and we were surrounded by dead trees from miles in every direction the area had been hit by a wildfire seven years ago when the crown fire burned almost 34 000 Acres of forest of course life returns after the fires and as we approached camp for the night we passed into some of the thickest Bare Grass blooms I've ever seen foreign [Music] foreign [Music] it's amazing the difference we've had between one campsite and the next the campsite we had last it was 100 degrees when we're setting up and as we slept overnight it maybe dropped down to like 75 or so whatever it was it was warm enough that I was sleeping on top of my covers all night long with the fan going last night when we got here it was probably in the 50s and then it dropped down into the 30s overnight and it buried down into all my covers had my hat on my head my my warm hat to keep them warm and we're maybe only a few thousand feet I'd say like four and a half to five thousand feet higher than we were and not much further north and today I think we'll end up a little bit further north we're basically following the Magruder road to the east over to Missoula where we're gonna pick up some cheap gas or uh actually some cheap air gas and then up onto the Lolo Motorway foreign started on Magruder we decided to take a quick detour to a fire lookout tower that would spotted earlier hey guys left on 285a there's a sign that says Green Mountain Lookout foreign thank you got some Downs trees but I think there's plenty of room for everybody by everybody you mean me I mean specifically Rob's fat ass while he's waiting for me a family stopped and talked to will telling him so he absolutely had to take a trip up the road to the left despite the rough road warnings and having a lot of distance to cover that day we decided to take a look all right I just want to stop a sec and check in is this a Fool's errand I don't know we're not moving very fast moving real slow I think this is going to be like a super choppy drive that's going to take quite a bit of time to get up there I haven't seen anywhere to turn around anyway but uh yeah I think this is gonna be slow going it looks like we're like 60 of the way there yeah I think we keep going Chris you okay with that yeah that's fine [Music] I love watching you guys go between like two large rocks and then when I get there I just have to drive over them foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] this is quite possibly the most spectacular fire tower that I have ever visited just pushed up here right on the top of this rock on the edge of an enormous cliff and obviously since it's a fire tower you've got our views in every direction but the mountains from here are particularly spectacular it is an incredible trip up here well well worth it um the Trail's a little tough uh definitely want four-wheel drive decent clearance probably some skid plates as well uh you know low range that kind of thing to get up here but uh if you're in the area if you're doing the Magruder Road or the Magruder Corridor definitely come up to Burnt knob look out because this is what you get to see I don't know if I've been this but that was worth every second of the drive I agree 100 percent back on the road it was time to get some miles in we still had over 60 miles to the highway and then another 120 to our planned campsite that didn't mean that we missed out on the views the way the road winds through the tops of the Rolling mountains shows off the incredible scenery in every direction [Music] so you guys right in here my map has a spot marked that says this is very near the Magruder murder site that right in this Ravine below us is where the bodies were thrown down by that Creek down there this is the spot that marks the Magruder Massacre which is how this Trail this road this the most remote road that we know of got its name Magruder was a merchant from Wallace who wanted to go to Montana to take advantage of the mining Commerce that was happening there so he left he took his whole Posse he took all these Goods he made a bunch of money in Montana but he waited too long to come back he didn't come back until October and by that time all of his posse had kind of already gone back because of the Snows and he had to hire new people well these new people that he hired were unscrupulous they brutally murdered them with axes and shotguns took their bodies and dumped them in a ravine stole all their money and fled there was four of them however this is not a story about murder I think this is a story about friendship because Magruder's friend who is the banker in Wallace thought something was off these guys came back they had lots of money they seemed a little off and he said where's Magruder they said who's Magruder he said no no I don't believe you and so they fled they went to California he went to the deputies and he said I think something happened to Magruder he's my friend I want to do something about it right now and they said well we're not going to give you resources to go but if you want to go on your own dime we'll despise you so he chased them down all the way to San Francisco found one of their party that confessed to the murders brought them all back to Idaho and they hanged them for the murder of Magruder we just reached the end of the Magruder Road and got to the pavement we pulled over uh to air up again and we came across this this is a fire pit which is not only smoldering but it has red hot Embers in it and it's smoking away and there's no one here it just blows my mind when you see the damage that has been done by the forest fires yeah people still do this and there's a creek right there it's not like it's difficult to go get some water and put it out and if you're watching this and you're not sure how best to put out a fire lots of water a shovel and then mix it all together make like a gray ashy sludge that is cool and if you find someone that's done exactly what these people did confiscate their firewood once we're back on the highway it was time for me to think about some fuel how are you doing on gas I've got 25 miles range we've got 35 to Derby as we were filling up we noticed a huge plume of smoke from a fire to the South investigators later found out that it was started by a smoldering campfire the day before and ended up burning over 130 000 Acres we also got food at a fantastic restaurant in Derby uh really good value Burgers because we're probably gonna be driving kind of late tonight uh it's about uh I want to say like 50 miles up to Lolo where we turn off and get onto the dirt roads again and it's currently 7 30 so we're probably by the time we reach the campsite I got marked on the lowland roadway probably going to be quite late and probably getting dark okay we're entering the historic low low corridor this is the most fun trail so far [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] we didn't actually end up at the campsite that I had marked last night I had a little pin dropped that said like great Camp Mountain views we pulled up and there was space for one vehicle and that's it so obviously when I started dropping these bins I need to make a note of how many vehicles will fit there uh because it's not always just me the traveling but we did end up here in the trees you don't have those great Mountain views but this is still a pretty cool place to camp this is one of the places where the Lewis and Clark expedition camped on their way through the Lola Trail next to a snow bank so this one's called snowbank Camp as we drive along the Lolo Trail today the Lolo Motorway there are going to be tons of these little places because obviously as they were traveling this area they're traveling with a team a bunch of horses it took them a really long time to get through here and for us we've got a tundra and two Jeeps we'll be done with this by the end of the day hopefully so we're fort Igo the low low Motorway is based on a route that has been followed across the mountains between Montana and Idaho for centuries first by Native American tribes heading East on the road to Buffalo country and then later by explorers and settlers heading west the route is well documented by the Lewis and Clark expedition who crossed it in the fall of 1805 over a period of nine treacherous days like 45 minutes and we've just reached the next campsite along the Lewis Clark expedition Trail [Music] [Music] foreign it wasn't until over 60 years later in 1866 that it was improved to a wagon trail in the 1930s the National Forest Service asked for funding from Congress to create the motorway a way of getting firefighting trucks into the area and by 1934 the road was completed to what you see today it starts off wide open with fantastic views of the mountains to the South about a third of the way in you enter more forested areas and this is where you start to encounter one of the biggest challenges on Idaho's Northern Trails downed trees blocking the roads we come to the first tree of the day and honestly I'm surprised it's taken this long this is this is one of the features of the Idaho Back Country Discovery is trees down everywhere if you come a little later in the year usually you're okay because other people have cleared it it's been cleared I feel like for motorcycles and smaller vehicles but the tundra just wouldn't fit through this so we're going to cut it uh at the base there and then cut it in small pieces and push it off to the side after moving the tree there was a short stretch of clear Road followed by more piles of trees thankfully most have been cut but it was tight cleared for a full-size truck can you imagine being first through this Trail this year I do Wonder like [Applause] like they weren't driving a tundra or a g things were pretty slow going whoever had cleared them had saved us a ton of work but the path was just narrow enough that I had to slow down to a crawl for every single one and it went on for miles foreign towards the end of the Lolo Motorway the trail gets more traveled and less overgrown we dropped down to the town of Pierce where we filled up with gas and then headed north towards campsite that had been recommended to us one of the things about the part of the Idaho Back Country Discovery route after the Lolo Motorway is that it goes through a lot of land that's used for forestry for logging and they often close the roads and unfortunately one of the roads that's closed is the Granddad road which is part of the backcountry discover route and what makes that even worse is that's actually the road that goes past the place that we're going to camp tonight we had a recommendation in town to head up to a fire tower which looked really cool but the road going up past it is closed so unfortunately we're gonna have to take the detour that I've got there I do know that there is a campground down by the reservoir that we're heading towards uh so hopefully it's a good one we're also really tired you know it's been a long day uh so we're really hoping that the campground there is nice the road to Granddad was easy but just a few miles away from the campground we noticed smoke rising from between the Hills this is the third year in a row that I have attempted the Idaho backcountry Discovery and it seems on this route there's a very fine line between having snow problems and having fire problems the first year that I attempted it it was actually the section that we're going to be doing tomorrow we ran into so much snow that we had to turn around the second year that we did it there were some patches of snow up there but there are tons of fires that started up while we're traveling it and I think that's the stage we're at now I'm yet to see if there is snow tomorrow there may end up being seeing some snow on our Trail tomorrow but we are starting to see a lot of fires we've already passed one fairly fairly significant fire and there is another one now behind us this one is fairly small and they are actively fighting it we've heard and seen helicopters going in and out of it so hopefully they can keep that one contained in terms of camping tonight it's going to be okay at least I think it is because we're on completely the opposite side of a fairly significant reservoir from it so uh we'll keep an eye on it but I think we'll be okay tomorrow on the other hand we cross over so uh we'll have to see how they are doing fighting it and see what it looks like tomorrow morning when we drove in last night we thought this Campground was going to be terrible it's basically a boat ramp with a bunch of people camped in it and we thought it was gonna be really loud but actually I was probably the loudest person last night when I was inflating the mattress in my Rooftop tent I wish I could show you guys more of the reservoir but with the Wildfire it's about six miles to the south west of us it's just not a good idea flying a drone with all the helicopter activity that's going on they're flying down they're picking out water from the reservoir itself and using it to fight the fire so if I put the Drone up it means they have to stop what they're doing so we'll keep it down until we're clear of the area foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so Rob is just the road that was uh still had some snow on it and some palm trees last year yes so when we did this last year the trees had all been cleared so we didn't have any issues with those because I was driving the Forerunner but there were still a few patches of snow that we had to drive through and when I did it the year before that that's when it was like knee-deep snow and more which was also in July two years prior me and my friend Andreas had struggled for hours up snowy Hills while trying to complete this part of the route the snow was just icy enough that we could drive across the top but if we lost traction or broke through that layer we had to pull cable I'm pretty sure this tree on the right is one that I cleared it was it had been one of a bunch of trees with cleared trying to get through before finally being stopped by a huge snow bank that we considered impossible this time around things were going a lot smoother but we still had some concerns we keep an eye on reports watching the maps worried about snow up here worried about running into impossible snow the temperatures have been a little higher this year but unfortunately we did just come across a fairly significant snow bank here on the trail thankfully I got my traction boards with me if you watched my Pacific Crest Trail uh video that I did you know I bought some traction boards from wish.com you know they're kind of cheap a little crappy but now the max tracks have come out with their own compact traction boards so we're gonna set these out and hopefully we'll make it through that little patch of snow I mean big patch of snow [Music] aren't you gonna need them or do you want me to get the winch out I think uh I think I think we should use these I think my Jeep can handle it I don't know about your Tundra his Jeep might have been a little more capable but as he pulled forward it started doing other Jeep things just doing that will has noticed that his Jeep has been making a lot of noise uh sounds like he's coming from the front end sounds like it's coming from the U-joint uh on the drive shaft so he has put it in two-wheel drive and it seems to have helped a little bit uh we'll have to see how it goes hopefully his Jeep stays together thankfully from here on out at least through to Wallace it's fairly easy going there was one more tight squeeze and then we were out onto the open and maintained roads as we drove down through Fish Hook Canyon [Music] oh got a fawn up here to stay on the road I feel bad we're scaring the little guy down the road [Music] that looks like a very new deer I'm gonna stop here hopefully I find a place to leave oh now at least now it's leaving the road [Music] at the end of the canyon you cross the Saint Joe River into the old railroad town of Avery from there we followed the old Milwaukee railroad North looking for a spot to camp [Music] just pulled into a beautiful little campsite right next to the creek just north of Avery Idaho and if you get a chance to visit Avery it's well worth a visit you know it's an old railroad town so it's lots of cool things to see there and there's a great little ice cream shop that I stopped off at and the drive out of Avery is really neat as well because you have two choices you can either follow the creek that we're on now or you can follow the old railroad my personal favorite is the railroad even though it's technically not the backcountry Discovery route so you get to go through a bunch of tunnels and tomorrow we'll be following us tomorrow going across the big Bridges [Music] foreign [Music] y night last night as you can probably see from the streaks of dust down the side of the tent inside of the truck there and it is just starting to rain a little bit again now I'm hoping it's brief and it clears up again because we're about to head down the railroad and the bridges you just can't do them Justice from the ground I've got to get the Drone up foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] unfortunately this leg of the trip would be my last and I wouldn't be making it to the Canadian border I was out of time and had to start the 48-hour drive back to Kentucky it turned out I made a good call leaving when I did as I got close to home I got a phone call my pregnant wife's blood pressure had spiked and she was going to have an emergency C-section I was going to be a dad about six weeks earlier than planned we now have a happy and healthy baby boy who's already been on his first camping trip with us in Colorado and Utah if you want to see it make sure you subscribe to the channel if you want to see the rest of the Idaho background Discovery route you need to go check out Will's channel from venture to Rome and I'll put a link to his video in the description so you can go see that oh man we made it because I've run out of time unfortunately I have to be back in Kentucky so I'm heading out from here on the I-90 thanks for watching [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Revere Overland

Views: 532,571

Keywords: revere overland, overland, overlanding, off road, offroad, offroading, off roading, 4x4, toyota tundra, new tundra, 2022 tundra, tundra overland, tundra overlanding, tundra, tundra off road, tundra offroad

Id: 5wKJ-Vx2WBs

Length: 74min 37sec (4477 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 30 2022