Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park: 5/1-2/14

After spending last night with friends in Boise, we arrived fairly early -- noonish -- at the visitor center. Did a quick go-around, picked up maps, etc. Headed to Broken Wheel Campground and found many/most sites were reserved for Friday/Saturday nights. OMG!!! I never thought that, especially when we drove up as there was only two campers there besides the host. Stopped by the host and asked. He had a list of reservations and gave me some site numbers. We checked them out... ugh. Seems like they had been reserved after they printed his page this morning! Even looked at a couple sites at Eagle Cove Campground. This is where they "rack-em-and-stack-em"! Big rigs all in a row with perhaps 20 ft. separating the pull-throughs. Ugh. Not my cup-o-tea... Came back to host at Broken Wheel and talked more. He went around with me checking all sites and sure enough, it looked like we were snookered for Friday night (the 2nd). Tonight is fairly wide open. Alternative for tomorrow night is to move to Equestrian Camp as they don't reserve those sites. They are all dry camps.

We chose a site in Broken Wheel, which is a very nicely laid out camp with most sites having power and water (some dry sites), and some having wind shelters for the picnic tables. I'd bet these are very welcome when the wind howls (which, I understand is often -- for how did the dunes get here and how do they stay!). There are numerous mature trees which would provide welcome shade during the heat.

Today is about 78 for the high. Very comfortable. We went for a hike with the dogs around the smaller lake, but soon found out that walking on the sand was too hot for the dogs! They really suffered and we ended up not going more than a half mile on the sand, but about 1.5 miles with walking on grass and rocks, etc. So warning to dog owners... be wary of even slight heat. Our dogs are around 10 y.o., but are in good shape and they suffered. Nothing that a dip in the lake and a short rest back at camp didn't fix up.

I'd rate the showers and restrooms as a 9 for cleanliness and 8 for maintenance and modern setup. Fairly good, IMHO, for a state park. Although since the camp was mostly vacant, cleanliness was expected. I wonder what it's going to be like tomorrow when the huge influx of campers arrive.

So we're here with only about 6 campers in Broken Wheel (so far) and it's cooling off, peaceful, and only a light breeze! Awesome day! (Oh yeah, there's some black flying/biting bugs that are bothering one dog and Lisa... but they don't seem to bother me. I've been warned by the ranger to have bug spray handy.)

Well, we didn't have the luxury of a mostly empty campground last night as a Junior High School group from Boise showed up. About 30 or so kids and adults. They were noisy late (maybe 11pm), but were fine in the morning. Other campers felt they had been invaded and moved across the camp closer to our location (invading us!... not really), but hey, I think it's great that the school takes these kids out and has them experience things like this. I'm going to whine here... I NEVER GOT TO GO ON TRIPS LIKE THIS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL!

Very clear night with stars bursting through our skylight window in the camper. Spectacular, even though I didn't spend much time viewing it when I got up in the night to hit the head. Cool night, maybe 45 or so. Dawn was peaceful except for the constant cooing of Eurasian Collared Doves... well, I'm telling ya that it wasn't bad, but noticeable.

We got going early on the 2nd to move camp over to the Equestrian Camp and make it to the base of the dunes by just after 9:00. Absolutely a perfect morning for hiking. The junior hs kids were just ahead of us and we followed in their footsteps. Soon, I found that if I stepped in someone else's print, that it was a bit easier to climb. At the bottom, we only fell back about 1/3 of each step. Towards the very steep top, fallback was more like 2/3 of each step. I can't deny this was the greatest workout I've had for a long while.

From the top, we had a great view of both lakes, a marshy area below, and the back side of the dunes. They don't extend far, and fall precipitously back to the 'regular terrain'. I hiked a ridge to the "vortex", which I understand is an artifact of the wind swirling. So there's this hole, basically in the center of the dunes that is cleared of sand... so cool! If you're going to climb the dunes, you must see this as it's behind the saddle between the two highest parts of the dunes.

I shot some fun photos of grass and plants at the lower part of the dunes as well as a beetle. Very interesting some of the plants had the sand blown away from the base, but long roots shot out across the dunes and minimally anchored them. I suppose since they were greening up that they had enough water to survive the severe environment. I'll add them here when I have time.

By the time we got back to the truck, it was getting warmish... in the high 70's. We let the dogs out and they swam in the lake. Both had great fun. Got back to our camp around 11:20 and sought the shade. Heat topped 120 in the sun (on the back of our camper) and 88 in the shade. Plenty hot for May 2nd!

Spent the afternoon reading, catching up on sleep, drinking iced tea, taking a shower, and blogging! Tonight we're planning on going to the observatory and hearing the talk, looking at stars, and general laziness. More on this later.