McCall Road Trip - August 2011

Big Payette Lake

The destination for today's blog is Big Payette Lake, a beautiful glacial lake in the West Mountains of the Payette National Forest.  The lake is at an altitude of about 5000 feet, up to 300 feet deep and covers over 5000 acres.  The resort town of  McCall, about 100 miles north of Boise, is located on the south shore of the lake, and provides access to year-round outdoor enjoyment.

Shoreline swimming area and marina

The scenery in and around McCall is incredibly beautiful.  The movie Northwest Passage starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Young and Walter Brennan, was filmed here in 1940.

McCall has a very large marina, a small portion of which can be seen in the picture on the left.   Jet skis and sailboats are on the lake all summer.
 
McCall usually receives the most snowfall in the state. Over 500 miles of snow trails are in the area.  Two famous residents who made good use of the snow are the Olympic skiers Mack Miller and Patty Boydstun-Hovdey.

Barbara Morgan, the first teacher in space, also hails from McCall.  She was the backup to Christa McAuliffe, who died in the Challenger disaster.

For more information about McCall check out this link:
http://www.mccallchamber.org/

Marilyn and I started our day in Boise and drove north on the Payette River Scenic Byway (Idaho Highway 55).  We soon left the high desert plains and entered the forest, following the north fork of the beautiful Payette River upstream.  The views from the car were spectacular, with lots of white water and tall pines.  We stopped at every highway marker along the way. 

Rainbow Bridge

The Rainbow Bridge across Idaho 55, built in 1933, is the largest single span arch structure in Idaho.  It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its engineering design.  The builders managed to avoid destroying the natural beauty of the area.

Upon arrival in McCall, we had lunch at a restaurant on the lake, then hit the gift shops, finishing up with a yarn store.

Pelican - Cascade Reservoir

On the way back to Boise, we drove around the west side of Lake Cascade, formed when an earthen dam was completed by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1948. On the far side of the lake from the highway we spotted a pelican sitting on a rock.  He looked lost to me.

The rest of the drive back to Boise included the low point of the day.  We got stuck for an hour behind a very long line of cars following a truck with a wide load traveling at about five miles an hour.  When the truck finally pulled off the road just north of Horseshoe Bend, it was so late that most restaurants were closed.  We were starving, so we stopped at a restaurant that I have a vague feeling included "Cowboy" in its name.  We were the only customers not in the smoky bar we had to walk through to get to the "dining room."  That should have told us something right there, but we were too hungry to pay attention.  We ordered taco salads, waited about an hour, and got something only vaguely resembling what we ordered.

Leaving Horseshoe Bend and its cuisine behind, we soon crested a "hill" we would call a mountain in Georgia, rounded a curve in the road and spotted the lights of Boise in the distance.  We arrived back at Starr and Karen's house safe and sound to rest up for our next adventure.