St. Joe Wild & Scenic River | St. Joe National Forest, Idaho 

Still one of the tougher trips I've done! Hoping to get back to the St Joe soon!

It is a really neat area. There are more trails to wander there too. We'll be back!

Thank you and I am so glad that you enjoy them. Part of the reason I post these videos is so members of my family who can't get out on the trail with us can still see some of the beauty that we are hiking in to. I'm glad that they can give you that as well.

Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment!

Right on! I like to make the videos so someone might be able to plan a route around that route. Glad you were able to follow along!

The St Joe is truly a treasure of the area!

In hindsight we should've walked the road to get up to the trail to the lake. One of the people I was hiking with was dealing with some pretty bad blisters that they got on day 1. They pushed through many miles but at that point, threw in the towel. I'm hoping to get up there again this summer.

Awesome! I assume that you'll get to the lake from either road #320 or from the top of the divide. I think that both of those trails are there, but I cannot say for sure because we never made it that far. We did see a sign for the lake as we were driving out. There is just no trail from Heller Creek Campground to St. Joe Lake. The forest service map I used showed one, but safe to say it has been abandoned.

I love the area! We have a few more videos from this year's trip. I am way behind on making them. No set winter trips planned yet, other than we'll get out there.

Thank you!

The St Joe is a special place. You're right though, we did take the hard way, that was kind of the point.

Send me a map of the easy trail, please,, hahahahaha

It was a long way. I look forward to doing another one like that next year. Thanks for watching!

That section of the river of so beautiful! I hope to do it again at some point!

I'm hoping to get back down in to that area next summer. There have been a few fires in the area over the last few years. Hopefully it is just as pristine now has it was then!

Enjoy it! The St Joe river is exceptional!

It's well worth the trip in there! It's a beautiful river!

Thank you! We knew going in that this one was going to be tough. It was also the challenge of it that made us do it.

@@mountainwanderer , on Monday I uploaded a Luxury Gear Challenge video and tagged you. Thought you might have some interesting luxury gear items.

@@BryanDeLay Thanks for thinking of me!

It is an incredible area!

Oh and what card game were you all playing?

Thank you! I picked this route for 2 reasons, I wanted to see if see I could do some high milage days, and the other is that I like to pick routes where I can either thru-hike it or make a loop. Anything but backtracking. Just so I can see more country and walk new trail. This was the only route we could do that would catch the whole St. Joe trail. It was quite an adventure!

Crazy 8's. I lost the hand I filmed... but I won the war. 😀

Mountain Wanderer Half the fun is just looking at maps and trying to picture what would work

Glad I'm not the only one!

Thanks for checking it out!

Andy is a great hiker! When I saw someone hiking up the trail to meet me I remember thinking "what kind of crazy s.o.b. would be hiking up this?" I was happy to see him though!

@@mountainwanderer I used to hike with a guy like that. He'd scout ahead at what seemed light speed while the rest of us were crawling along with heavy packs. Then come back and report to us what was over the next couple of miles, then leave us in the dust again. Once, (and only once), I was that guy. I was hiking the Highline Trail in Glacier with a married couple I knew when the wife took ill. Not too ill to hike, but too sick to move quickly. So the husband gave me the keys to his truck and I had to haul ass down to make it to the trailhead, catch the last shuttle to the parking area where his truck was parked, then drive back with his truck. I did it, only stopping at the Granite Park Chalet to get some water before racing on down to the trailhead. Probably the fastest I've ever hiked. I didn't care for going that fast in griz country, but it couldn't be helped. I doubt if I could do that now.

That sounds like an adventurous hike down! Seems like everything changes in Griz country.

You and me both!

No you don't. You think you do, but you don't

It was great after that hike!

The Silver Valley is an incredible place! I love it here!

That is awesome!

On this trip we never saw any sign when down around the river, when we were up on the ridges we did see some, but not much though.

The mountains here are special. That's for sure! The song at the beginning of the video is from a bluegrass band I was in. I'm working with this same fiddle player to hopefully bring some new music to the channel.

@@mountainwanderer They really are(it's called the Gem State after all lol); the music is a wee bit reminiscent of Celtic Folk music in a way, which I enjoy; hope you take care

Sometimes we were an Irish band, so that makes sense!

Yep, gotta be careful! Thanks for checking it out!

That is awesome! I wish I could say the same, but I'm not even close. I do hope to get back there this year some time.

The trail is really amazing and the river is great! You won't be disappointed!

I use 7.5 minute USGS maps on Caltopo. I'm not sure what year they are from... old.

Gotcha, i’ll have to check out cal topo

Yes, we could've driven there and started up the trail from there. We wanted to make a loop out of the trip so we started where we did. We started and went the direction we did because the terrain was more in our favor that way. There was much more downhill than uphill and since there was no water on that stretch it was the better option.

Your video's are awesome. Love the format. I hope you will keep posting them for a long time to come.

Thank you! I hope to keep posting. I have more videos to catch up on and we're heading out on a couple more trips before it snows too much (we already have snow in the high country)

I can't give any tips on the fishing, but for hiking I would say don't go the way we did. 😀I would park at the Spruce Tree campground and hike up from there. There are campsites along the way.

Mountain Wanderer seriously, thanks for the valuable advice!!

Tough to beat the end-of-trip beer!

Nope not on this one. The other guy did bring a spinner and caught a few on our 2nd night.

We did this trip around the first week of August. In late June, I would guess that you could do this route. Here is the route I mapped out: caltopo.com/m/RT0C We only had it to Heller Creek and not the full loop.

No Griz.

This trip was in early August, it's the only time of year I have been in there.

Yes, plenty of them.