Camp Cross

Across Idaho the summer a camp actually happens in depends on elevation and on which corner of the state you are in. The southwest runs hot and dry by day and cools off sharply at night, while the north and the high mountains stay cooler. The constant is cold water: lakes and reservoirs warm slowly, so swimming is bracing and short, and the snowmelt rivers run cold and high early before easing off. Afternoon storms gather over the peaks, and late in the season wildfire smoke can drift into the valleys and change what a day outdoors looks like. The figures shown here are air temperatures only.

Most families arriving from a distance come through Boise (BOI), far and away the state's busiest airport and the natural door to the central mountains and the southwest. Because Idaho is long, other airports matter as well: for the northern panhandle lakes, Spokane in Washington (GEG) is often the closest way in, and for the eastern side there is Idaho Falls (IDA). From any of them the pattern is the same, a highway that climbs toward the mountains and eventually gives way to gravel forest road as a camp draws near.

How far the pavement carries you depends on the camp. Resident camps sit at the end of those mountain roads; wilderness expeditions begin where the road stops entirely, at a river put-in or a trailhead, with the deepest country reachable only by small aircraft to a backcountry airstrip. In the valley towns it inverts completely, and reaching a day camp is a short commute rather than a journey. Whatever the case, arrange the actual transport and any pickup directly with the camp rather than assuming a service exists.