Camping on the Salmon River

Central Idaho is beautiful country with lakes, rivers, mountains and pastures everywhere. There are plenty of opportunities to just enjoy the outdoors. This trip we had the goal of traveling down the Highway 95 along the Salmon River. It’s a scenic drive through a few small towns and is fun to catch rafters making their way along the river.

We planned to camp 2 nights around Riggins, ID along the river. After checking out a couple of river access camp areas, we settled into Fiddler Creek Recreation Area. Fiddle creek had 2 sites with fire pits, an amazing river view of the Trap rapids area. Being near the highway wasn’t even an issue; the river drowned out any road noise!

• GPS: 45.48393, -116.31625
• Easy to locate: Yes; right off the highway between Lucille and Riggins
• Public Land: Yes
• Cell: None
• Crowded: not at all
• Buggy: No
• Clean: yes, pretty clean clean
• Would we stay here again: Yes, as long as we don’t need cell connections

We really wanted to see the rock slide that was blocking our passage, but were unable to get into the area (understandably). So, we took a mountain drive towards Hells Canyon area. Unprepared for the lengthy drive and not completely aware of where we were heading we did not get down to the valley. We only made it up and around one mountain to catch a view into the valley and headed back to camp.

Where to next?

Based on the information we had, we planned to return to the Lewiston area, hoping we could stay a 2nd time at our Harvest Host, Lindsay Creek Winery. Then the following day start the drive through Oregon around the rock slide. It’ll be an additional 6 hours of driving. We’ll take advantage of being back in Lewiston to catch up on laundry and shopping. We’ll plan an overnighter south of Council, ID and get to our McCall, ID camping area as planned.