Ten Mile Campground- Relaxing In The Boise National Forest

by LOSTNBOISE on 08/14/08 at 5:00 am

The sign identifying Ten Mile Campground off Highway 21. If you see a sign for Bad Bear you've gone too far.
Ten Mile Campground on Highway 21 lies between rivers and strange cartoonish conifers, resembling trees that could be found in a Dr. Seuss story book. Nestled in the Boise National Forest, Ten Mile became a final happy destination after a number of camping mishaps I experienced last weekend while spending time with my friends Andrew and Taylor. While it wasn’t our desired destination we found ourselves very content to relax in this quiet hideaway.
We set ourselves up at the first site on the left hand side of the freeway next to the smaller creek. We paid our 15-dollar site fee and began setting up camp, choosing to move our tent down below the main area of our site to a small flat area next to the water. We grabbed our gold pans and did a little bit of amateurish panning, passing the time away in the cool water while observing the abundant periwinkles (at least thats what Taylor called them) creeping below the surface. One thing we did begin to notice was the large amount of flies buzzing around the camp. Standard house flies as well as flies that mimicked honeybees and butterflies insisted on dive-bombing our heads as we tried to relax. These, while a continuous nuisance, were much preferred to blood sucking mosquitoes.
Taylor attempting to gold pan in the creek beside our tent.
Gold pans got old pretty quickly and we easily moved on to other activities like exploring the rest of the site. Ten Mile Campground has locations on both sides of Highway 21. We crossed the road and followed a trail over a small hill next to the restrooms and back through the trees towards the steep side of the mountain. Beyond the trees flowed a small slow river winding its way down the mountainside. I walked through the pleasantly chilly waters observing the stepping-stones and watching Andrew take all sorts of pictures. Taylor and I settled next to a calm deep spot of the river, observing the butterflies and taking turns looking at the color of the water through the polarized lenses of my sunglasses. I wished I could have waded in the pool, taking a dip and cooling off. Instead we entertained ourselves by tossing rocks into the water. Taylor uncovered a makeshift fishing poll left behind by some other campers and decided to keep it and attempt to fish with it later that day.
Andrew attempting to get all of his photo gear across the river.
A little later we determined that it might be a good idea to gather some wood for our marshmallow roasting fire. We wandered around our area gathering sticks and up the hill a little ways to a spot where presumably the forest service had felled a tree. We grabbed some of the drier pieces and returned them to our pile next to the fire pit at camp. For a while we entertained ourselves individually. I lay down for a time in the tent, gazing up through the netting into the trees and then turning back to my book to read another page. Outside, Taylor sat on a log playing little things on his harmonica, while Andy whittled a wooden hook for the fishing poll.
After an hour or so I was too hungry to wait any longer. I began setting out ingredients for our five-course meal of items left over from our failed attempts at camping over the past few days. Mac and Cheese, followed by vegetable stir fry, spaghetti, and corn barbequed over the fire, with a finale of roasted marshmallows and smore’s. Everything was delicious, minus the corn, which tasted a lot like soot. What might have made it better was if we had perhaps wrapped the corn in tin foil before placing it over the flame, but I can’t be sure that would have made a difference.
Andrew and Taylor whittle their marshmallow roasting sticks beside the fire at Ten Mile Campground in the Boise National Forest. Andrew and Taylor check the makeshift fishing poll we set up in the stream beside our tent.
Lying down that evening we were full and peaceful. The waters whispered to us all night. The morning brought us pancakes and plenty of flies. We ate, cleaned and packed up.
Our last challenge was a stop at the Sarsaparilla Ice Cream Parlor in Idaho City, where the men ordered a Gold Pan full of five different flavors of ice cream. While most everything was delicious and satisfying the Sarsaparilla was a strange smoky airplane flavor that I would not recommend.
Those interested in visiting Ten Mile Campground should head toward Idaho City, taking Warmsprings Road out to Highway 21 about 15 miles past Idaho City. For more information on Ten Mile check out www.fs.fed.us.