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Old 02-19-2015, 10:08 AM   #1
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aarowrock dam to blacks creek. a love day mini trip report.

weather here has been unseasonably warm. reaching mid 60's in town, the spring bug has been biting hard for getting out. so since all our friends were doing separate things for love day, we decided to escape the city for a weekend away from the house and city. wife gets off work late so we decided to leave sat morn instead of trying to get camp setup in the dark.

this is the route we took. i should mention that most years this route will not be accessible this time of year

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... EweN7xbW0U

this is my first trip report, so if anyone has suggestions, im all ears. especially a better program to map routes on.

once the pavement ends near aarowrock dam (point a), the road goes to crap fast. this is the only way to and from atlanta and it gets hammered during the winter months. if you can air down, it is highly recommended. we noticed the reservoir is at full capacity already. not common for mid feb here. we went up the road to cottonwood creek canyon (point b) and did some exploring as we had never been that direction. ran into snow about 4 miles up the road. it was getting a little late, so we picked a spot below the snowline and started unpacking and gathering wood.

our camp for the night.


it got really cold, really fast once the sun was off of us, so we cooked up some chow and retreated to the van about 9pm and watched a few episodes of brickleberry and enjoyed a few drinks. got up the next morning around 7am (which is sleeping in for me...) and needless to say, it was cold. i started up the van to take the edge off for the wifey. otherwise, she would have never actually got out of bed. while we idled, i watched a few episodes of archer. once i was warmed up i pulled off the reflectix and opened one of the penthouse windows. i was amazed at how quickly it got cold inside the van. the reflectix really does make a solid difference. anyhow, once i looked outside, this is what i saw.



of course the propane bottle was iced over prior to crashing out, but all the other surface hoar was from the overnight temps. brrrrrr!

we had pretty much explored all that was available under the snowline in the area we were camped, so we decided to take the long way home and see an area i have wanted to check out for years, the blacks creek area. we traveled up the road to point c where the bridge over the middlefork is.

downriver towards boise.



upriver towards atlanta.



the road after this bridge was in amazing shape. you could travel 35+ mph no problem. we found some really neat camping spots starting about 6 miles from the bridge. all of the spots were obviously rarely used. we will be back to investigate further...maybe even this weekend, lol. a lot of these camps were old hunting camps. there were fire rings, but you couldnt id the way in and out of the spots. that interests me a lot

a few pix from one of the hunt camps we stopped at for bfast/lunch.





i had been into blacks creek to the southfork from the highway a few times, but never inbetween the middle fork and the southfork of the boise river. i must say, it was a really great drive. very scenic. the canyon the southfork is in was amazingly deep. kinda freaked me out driving on the edge of a sheer cliff with muddy and frozen spots all over. some of the grades were dam steep. anyway, heres a few snaps from along the way.

a nice little creek waterfall that was working on washing out the road.



this is where jackass creek dumps into the southfork.



there were a few ranches along the way. some really nice properties. some defanged sabertooth mountian cows we shared the road with for a while.



this is looking back up the canyon. kinda gives a bit more of a reference to how deep the canyon is.



looking downstream at the bridge that crosses over the southfork. just after this area is where it dumps into aarowrock res.



looking back and waaay down at the aarowrock res.



we stopped at a trailhead just before we got back to pavement for a snack and a short hike. the wife sprained her ankle over the holidays, so our hike was short as her ankle started bothering her. this is looking back towards the highway where we turned around.



our pix are pretty weak from the area as the wife didnt bring her good camera (for some reason ), so these are all cell pix. for that i apologize. we are going back up to camp at cottonwood this weekend with a few friends. im thinking about doing this route again and planning time for some real photos. if we do so, i will post them up.

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Old 02-19-2015, 10:16 AM   #2
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. love day mini trip report

So, in the third pic, passenger side window is down, your wife is staring desperately at the river, and she's holding a plate like she's expecting a fish to jump out of the river and land there. Did you feed her at all?


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Old 02-19-2015, 10:26 AM   #3
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. love day mini trip report

^^^ lmao. too funny. she had just finished a sammich and got sidetracked by the view. we sat on the bridge for a few minutes taking the views in. and truth be told, shes the cook. i have strange eating habits. she would die with my diet...
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Old 02-19-2015, 10:27 AM   #4
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. love day mini trip report

"defanged sabertooth mountain cows" That's the name of my next band
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Old 02-19-2015, 01:32 PM   #5
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. a love day mini trip repo

Good trip report. Did you start your journey from highway 21, just north of the Mores Creek Bridge? I've seen that road take off and a sign that says 'Atlanta 68 miles'. Is that the road you turned on?

I've always wanted to take that all the way to Atlanta and then from Atlanta through Featherville to Mountain Home. I think that would make a good road trip.

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Old 02-19-2015, 02:16 PM   #6
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. a love day mini trip repo

thanks mike. doesnt hold a candle to your reports with your great photography, but maybe someday

yes, we started off from highway 21, and yes, you can take that road all the way to atlanta np. last year we did a very similar trip to what your wanting to do. we aired down at the dam and drove back to atlanta. we stopped at 13 or so natural hotsprings. so if you have the hotsprings book, take it and utilize it from atlanta we went to rocky bar and took a right up to trinity lakes (the long way) and went out through anderson ranch via prairie. it ended up being a 140 mile off pavement trip. we loved it.

if i were you and you wanted to go in on one of the 2-3 routes into atlanta, id go out twords pine, then take a left on fire road 227 before pine and follow it out past baumgartner hotsprings and exit near fairfield. that section of road along the southfork is really pretty. you can also take 227 into hailey if you were so inclined, but i havent driven that route personally. imho, it would be less highway miles and give you an excuse to go through craters

if you ever have any questions about this area, feel free to contact me. ill help out however i can

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"defanged sabertooth mountain cows" That's the name of my next band
do i get anything for inadvertently coming up with the name should you ever hit the bigtime?
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Old 02-19-2015, 02:30 PM   #7
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. a love day mini trip repo

Sounds like a good trip. A buddy and I are planning a similar route for this summer on bicycles. My wife will drive the van for support. There are several hot springs worth checking out along that route. My favorite is near where the north fork of the boise comes in to the main. If the water was up it may have been under the river though.
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Old 02-19-2015, 04:23 PM   #8
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. a love day mini trip repo

Thanks for the report. Looks like a great area and nice that you shared some places to camp.
One of these days I hope to get up that way.
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Old 02-19-2015, 05:12 PM   #9
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. a love day mini trip repo

Cool, looks nice even with a cellphone camera. Thanks for sharing!

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Old 02-19-2015, 06:59 PM   #10
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Re: aarowrock dam to blacks creek. a love day mini trip repo

It's remembering me some roads I drove, thanks for sharing shenrie.

I'm suprised that there is so few snow. Is that usual or is it an espacially dry winter?
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