Monday 9-26 Buffalo Campground & Walking

Having fun camping in the forest

Larry woke up with the temperature in the Minnie in the 40's. It was 32 degrees outside. He started the heater. At 2:00 it was 74 degrees.

I crawled out of bed about 7:30 and turned on the oven for breakfast sausage biscuits. The oven helped warm up the Minnie. The biscuits were very good. 

There's really no hiking trails in the area but they do have cross-country ski trails. I have had a cough for over three weeks and Larry thought I might want to take a day or two off of walking. I thought about it but decided to walk. I put my pouch together with water. We left the Minnie about 9:45 and did a 4.5 mile walk. We walked to the main highway, which was a half mile. Then we took a bridge over to the other side of Buffalo River. The bridge had a walkway for people. When we got on the other side we checked out the ski trail. The reviews about the trail were very negative. We have hiked ski trails before and knew they could be rough. We looked at the trail, it was over grown and not maintained so we decided against it. Instead we walked down the highway to where there was a sign for a day area and crossed the street. Then we took the road through a summer home area for 1.5 miles to the day area. The cabins were in the trees so you could barely see them. The road was dirt and very well packed, no potholes. The day area has a power plant and a hiking trail that goes to Box Canyon Campground. It's a cool power plant with metal grate walkways and is open to the public. We walked around the area and the walkways. It was very pretty. We didn't walk the trail because we didn't want to walk another 3 miles one way. After enjoying the area we started our walk back to the campground. After crossing the highway we stopped at the ranger station to ask about a trail in the area and about campground availability, all Forest Service campgrounds in this part of Idaho will be closed by this Friday at noon. We also picked up new state maps for Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. We had a great walk.

 

The power plant

 

The Buffalo River flowing down stream from power plant

 

Fishing on the Buffalo River

 

The fish ladder walkway we walked on

The Buffalo River Hydroelectric Project was originally built in 1930's to supply electricity to the Island Park Dam. Later it supplied power to Ponds Lodge. The power plant burned down in 1976 and was rebuilt. It was back in business in 1994. In 1997 the Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative Inc. acquired the facility and in 2004 it received a 40 year contract to supply electricity to 190 homes. It built a fish ladder to make it fish friendly which was completed in 2005.

We spent much of the day relaxing with a book. 

After dinner we walked around for a half hour. We walked to the fishing pier and the loops of the campground. Then Larry sat outside to read while I walked another hour. By the end of the day I did 27,000 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group.

We had another outstanding day.