[admiral]

Family and I got out together for a little riding and fishing on Labor Day Weekend. After driving around a while, we finally find a spot on Lake Creek, near (ish) Burgdorf, ID, north of McCall a ways. Always hard to find a place once the weekend is underway.



However, we find a nice place.

Sunday, the crew is up bright an early and ready to head out. About noon that is!! I've been up for about 6 hours already.

Found a route that will take us to a fire lookout, dirty, dusty, rocky, roads, then hopefully find a fishing spot.

As luck would have it, we find ourselves on an ATV Poker Run route for the Warren area fire department. The good part is our late start put us at the tail end of the hoards of ATV/UTV/motorcycle poker parade. We only had 1 group behind us at the start not counting the poker run sweep team.

Our first turn off the main road will take us to the Carey Dome Lookout. Bad part, we are now behind the last poker run group and have to wait for the dust to settle.

Heading up the lookout road

Now here's the real lucky part. We run into a poker run checkpoint. Lookout goes left, poker run head right at this point. Ladies are real nice. I ask which way does the poker run trail go. They tell me, "War Eagle Lookout" (I'm interested) and California Lake, (I'm real interested now). I ask, "any good fishing at California Lake?". "Why yes" the ladies tell me. Execellent, now we have a good fishing destination.

Before arriving at the fire lookout, I get a photo of it looking through an old burn

This fire lookout is a rare steel frame lookout and has the living quarters in a cabin on site. Turns out the lookout is manned this year. By Bill. Great guy

To be continued

 

[admiral]

From the lookout, Bill points out the Herman Fire to the N.E. of here across the Salmon River. The fire is about 5 miles on the other side of the far ridge (Oregon Butte is the high point to the right. The Herman fire is part of the Maguire fire complex west of Dixie, Idaho.

Here is the back side of the storage building, fire cabin, and lookout. Bill points out the cool cloud formation.

Bill tries to take our picture

Finally gets us in the "photo pose"

I found out if you stay too long, Bill puts you to work!

Few lookout informational photo's

Headed past the last poker run checkpoint, wave to the ladies, and head on the trail the poker run used

No need for directions, but there was another poker run checkpoint here also. They were leaving as we rolled up as the sweep team had already passed us and went through here

So is this the real definition of a logging road! Giggle. Bit of the trail on the way to California Lake. I think this use to be an old mining road, and is very rough in places.

more to come

 

[Wingnut]

Great weekend!

 

[admiral]

So from my last photo at the "log trail improvement zone", I turned around and got the girls coming through California Creek. Getting closer to the lake!

Finally made it to the lake so we can do some fishing.

A little lunch before fishing

Kid 5 catches a Rainbow Trout with Kid 6's assistance. This one stayed on the barbless hook long enough to take the picture before it fell off the hook and back in the water. We weren't going to eat them anyway, so no real loss. Bragging rights are to be had by Kid 5, she's the only one that was catching anything . . . as usual. She's fish lucky I think!

And me . . . I'm still trying to get the fishing line untangled . . . again

So after doing some fishing, we head back basically the same way we came. Here's another trail photo. Probably the most dangerous area on the trail.

Nice view from here of the marsh/meadow down below

Here's part of the Idaho Centennial Trail West (motorized portion). We were on it for just a short time. The non-motorized (east) portion goes through the Frank Church Wilderness area.

The small white marker on the tree denotes the Willow Creek trail (#138) with the trail in the background. This is the upper portion on the California trail. Tomorrow I will try to find the lower portion down by our camp.

more to come

 

[admiral]

And before we make it back to camp, I get a photo of Marshall Lake. Down the road we found the trail (hiking) into the lake that we had missed earlier in the day.

Next morning (Monday) while all the girls are still sleeping, I head out to find the Durden Mine and the bottom portion of Willow Creek trail #138. Before I get to the mine there is a fork in the road. I take a left and find the bottom portion of Willow Creek trail. Some day I will come back and ride the trail from one end to the other.

After finding the Willow Creek trail, I find the remnants of the old Durden Mine.

Looks like this was a storage hut mounded up or dug in

I find another cabin. Looks like the walls caved in as I can see what looks like a doorway frame laying in front. Also cool to see the logs are still filled with pitch or whatever they used to fill in the gaps in-between the logs.

And one last photo of Willow Creek as it runs past the old Durden Mine

Well, that's all folks. We all had a fun time riding, fishing and camping. I shan't complain! Take care all!

 

[lakesideboo]

Looks like a great weekend awesome pictures looks like a great place to ride and thanks for sharing.

 

[Rhodetrip]

Thanks, Admiral!

You've got a great place to ride, and a great family!

 

[retmotor]

Looks like an enjoyable trip. Thank you for taking the time to share. I see from the photos you did not have the fire smoke we do. I do so look forward to being able to breath air I cannot see. My wife has a few days off coming up. Maybe we should head that direction...

 

[gfletcb]

Looks like you camped in the very spot we did a couple years ago, still snow on the road to the lookout in late june, so we ended up going to the lake via warren. Kinda cool taking the road on down to the salmon river too. Skeeters were bad that year. I have a pic of california lake as my background on my tablet, which is what caught my eye

 

[Gerry]

Looked to be a great Labor Day adventure Kris. That look-out tower is something else. I have never seen one that high. I would never be able to get to the top of that puppy, not sure about the effort required, but plenty sure of the 'fear' factor. I don't like heights. Enjoyed the trip, thanks. Gerry





thanks

 

[lower al]

Thanks for the pictures looks like a great place to ride.

 

[admiral]

Looks like an enjoyable trip. Thank you for taking the time to share. I see from the photos you did not have the fire smoke we do. I do so look forward to being able to breath air I cannot see. My wife has a few days off coming up. Maybe we should head that direction...

Guess we got really lucky with the fire smoke, or lack thereof. Where I live, we've been socked in with smoke for well over a month. Fire smoke in our area is coming from all over this year, fires from Washington, Oregon, and even Nevada. Yesterday while out on an errand, I noticed I could see the mountains above Boise for the first time in a very long time. I was amazed at how clear it was. Probably won't last.



Knowing the Mustang fire near Salmon, ID and the along the Idaho/Montana border, and the fire we saw on this trip, I don't think you'll get smoke relief very soon, sorry to say!

 

[admiral]

Looks like you camped in the very spot we did a couple years ago, still snow on the road to the lookout in late june, so we ended up going to the lake via warren. Kinda cool taking the road on down to the salmon river too. Skeeters were bad that year. I have a pic of california lake as my background on my tablet, which is what caught my eye

Great riding area isn't it. I'm glad I came later in the year, not only do we have some relief from the skeeters, but I could see the road we rode on looks like is has a lot of water obstacles earlier in the summer. Though we did not ride down to the Salmon River, which I've driven to on the road that comes out at French Creek, I noticed one of my maps shows FS 318 going down to the Salmon and another does not show it. Local sweep rider for the poker run confirmed it goes down and is part of the motorized portion of the Centennial Trail (West).



Seems like we like to ride in similiar places, Warren/Burgdorf, Mineral etc. Lots of good places!

 

[admiral]

Looked to be a great Labor Day adventure Kris. That look-out tower is something else. I have never seen one that high. I would never be able to get to the top of that puppy, not sure about the effort required, but plenty sure of the 'fear' factor. I don't like heights. Enjoyed the trip, thanks. Gerry





could someone zero out the +1 I seemed to have given myself, thanks

Hi Gerry, nice to hear from you. Apparently, there aren't as many of these types of lookouts compared to the normal looking cabin type, but we got a good history lesson from Bill the lookout guy. I'm with you as I'm a little height challenged as well. Gotten use to it to some degree, but climbing a tower, not if I can avoid it. Plus the entry and exit to this type of tower is a trap door. Sounds sketchy to me!

 

[B-dub]

You do have a nice family, but without the guys around you're outnumbered!!! I'll bet you try to avoid letting things come to a vote, it's 3 to 1

Looks like a lot of interesting places to check out on that map.



That lookout tower is cool, made by the same company that manufactured all those windmills we love. I'm curious how rigid it is, if there is any swaying when the wind blows.



One of my sons-in-law is a BLM wildland firefighter and is up there somewhere fighting fires.



Looks like a good time was had by all. Thanks for taking us along.

 

[Gerry]

Boy B-Dub, I would be willing to buy you a new front tire should the person that is stationed in that look-out be inclined to say they don't feel the tower sway in a good wind. Yikes, if I spent the night there during a bit-of-a-storm I would need a porta potty. Then again, the view must be great. Gerry

 

[admiral]

You do have a nice family, but without the guys around you're outnumbered!!! I'll bet you try to avoid letting things come to a vote, it's 3 to 1

Looks like a lot of interesting places to check out on that map.



One of my sons-in-law is a BLM wildland firefighter and is up there somewhere fighting fires.



Looks like a good time was had by all. Thanks for taking us along.

I lost one vote for this trip. No Georgie. Girls said she takes up too much room in the back seat and mom won't let Georgie in the camper. I lose a lot of votes!

Right by our house we have one of those Aermotor steel fire lookout towers. I heard (not fact) that it was bought by the landowner and removed from a location in the Owyhee Mtns of SW Idaho along the Oregon border near Jordan Valley, OR, and rebuilt here. I suspect it was on either South Mtn or Juniper Mtn, which both had lookouts. Those mountains are on my "to visit list". It's not used as a fire lookout as there is not need, but I do know my internet provider has some sort of internet gizmo on it, which of course I appreciate. Alternative would be dial-up.



This area is going to be a great area to ride and explore in future summer trips. I've barely seen any of it.



Hope your son-in-law is doing well. Tons of work up here on the fires right now!