South Tourist Park, Idaho Falls, ID–free, but not for us

We found South Tourist Park through freecampsites.net. It is a City park which allows free overnight camping for one night beside the Snake River. There are a couple back-in sites, and some pull-through sites that are large for big rigs. They also have a dump and potable water. There is a boat ramp and fishing on the river. There are restrooms, but it was locked when I walked by. The coordinates for the park entrance are 43.473228, -112.052804. We had Verizon 4G and 28 TV channels.

   


In the freecampsites.net reviews, some mention “shifty” individuals in the area. I also read on the internet there have been issues with homeless people staying here and drug deals at night. There was a lot of traffic through the park all day. The Parks Dept. drove through once during the day. We didn’t see any marked police cars drive through. Curt talked to two other campers beside us; one was there four nights already, the other, two. They said another camper was there over a week. They said, too, that the area becomes very busy in the late afternoon and evening with vehicles meeting. We just didn’t feel comfortable there toward evening, so went to Walmart for the night and we’ll go to our next boondocking spot in the morning.

From Torrey, UT to Idaho Falls, ID–470 miles, a long drive for us!

Another storm system coming in. We’ve heard two times that it’s suppose to be nice and then a storm system comes along, again. We decided to leave and go north. Salt Lake City is suppose to have wind gusts up to 80 mph Sunday, so we moved in to Idaho. Anyone that knows us, knows that we don’t drive long distances like this unless we have to. Generally we’re 100 miles or less in a day.

We had sunshine, rain and snow again.

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Devils Slide  near Provo, UT.

  Manti, Utah Mormon Temple

Bridal Veil Falls near Provo, UT 

 

We ended up at Idaho Falls Walmart about 6:30. There were eight RVs that spent the night with us.

 

For more pictures, please click here. If any of my links don’t work, please let me know.

Boondocking West of Capitol Reef NP

We found the boondocking spot west of Capitol Reef National Park through freecampsites.net, as usual. Once we got in there, it was okay, except we had to eventually get back out again. The turnoff looks okay from the highway, but once you start turning in, you can see ruts and rocks so it’s slow going. When we left, we turned left instead of right, simply because it was easier, and then turned around further down the road and came back around.

We used this as our base for visiting Capitol Reef National Park. We had two bars Verizon, no internet, and 28 TV channels.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

     

When we went to bed the first night, it was raining, but in the morning it was snowing. It did melt later that day, but was still muddy out. There were two pickups and two cars that stayed overnight also, but they left the next day. The forecast was for another storm system to come in, so we decided to leave the next day.

     

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Capitol Reef National Park

Capitol Reef National Park initially became a national monument in 1937 with 37,711 acres. In 1970 it became known as a National Park with 254,000 acres. There is a $10 per vehicle entrance fee if you don’t have a National Park Pass. There is a visitor’s center, campground and orchard along with historical buildings.

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We stopped at the Visitor Center and watched their 18 minute orientation film, got my National Park stamp, picked up their brochure and park guide map. We drove the 10-mile scenic drive and did some hiking, and got caught in the rain. The rain quit for a bit and then came down hard so we decided to head back home.

 

For more pictures, including the brochures and maps, please click here.

From Bryce Canyon to Capitol Reef NP via Scenic Hwy 12

Highway 12 has mountain grades with some pull-over spots along the way. I believe our highest altitude was 9600 feet, and again, there was snow. Once we got to Torrey, Utah, we stopped at a visitor center and I picked up a booklet for Scenic Highway 12. I wish we would have had that before we left, and no, I didn’t even think of looking on the internet to see if there was something like that available or if it could be downloaded. 

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For more pictures of the trip, including the Scenic Highway 12 booklet, please click here.

Forest Service Road 088 boondocking Near Bryce Canyon

 

We found Forest Service Road 088 through freecampsites.net. We also talked to the forest rangers at the Red Canyon Visitor Center off highway 12. Initially we were going to go to Tom’s Best Spring Road dispersed camping, but they suggested this spot instead with rain/snow coming in. This is our base to go to Bryce Canyon National Park.

It’s in the Dixie National Forest and there are trees, but we found an area beside some corrals where we got some sunshine. We did get snow, but it melted fast. We had 4G 3 bar Verizon and able to use the internet. There were 17 TV channels. The road in from the highway is a good graded road. FR088 is narrow, like most forest roads, but we were able to get in and out easy with the motorhome. We had another camper near us, and occasionally a few pickups and cars driving the forest road.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

     

There are a lot of forest service roads in the area and we took the jeep and drove around. Further down FR088 is a lake, there were a few people fishing there. There’s also a primitive campground with a dump and water. We did see some antelope in the area, and one morning  some walked through our camping area. The forest road we took came out near the entrance to Bryce Canyon, and then we came back on the highway through Bryce City.

     

  For more pictures of the area, please click here.

Finally caught up–I hope!

We’re boondocking near Bryce Canyon National Park right now and actually have 4G cell service and internet. So I have spent today updating the blog, and adding pictures to the OneDrive all the way back to Montezuma Castle on April 9th.

   

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park has a visitor center, lodge, store, etc. There are two campgrounds, but we were boondocking free nearby, and their campgrounds don’t have hookups any way. There is a shuttle system, but it was not mandatory to use at this time.

     

We had a variety of weather changes while we were there. It was beautiful in the morning, but cool, around 37 degrees. It started getting colder and windier, then started snowing so much you could barely see. Again it cleared up, but the wind was still strong. Our highest temp that showed in our jeep was 41 degrees. Our highest altitude was over 9000 feet. I definitely do not like the higher altitudes.

       

Bryce Canyon became a national park in 1928 and is named after the Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce. Bryce is famous for its unique geology, consisting of a series of horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters, slot canyons, windows, fins, and spires called "hoodoos."  Like Zion, the scenery is great in Bryce! There have been fires in the park, the latest that I could find on the internet was a controlled burn in 2015.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them. For more pictures, including brochures and maps, please click here.  If any of the links don’t work, please let us know.