Bear Lake, Idaho

In 2003 with our former travel trailer we drove from Zion National Park, in southern Utah, to Yellowstone National Park, in Montana, via Salt Lake City. From Salt Lake our routing took us though the north-east corner of Utah and past Bear Lake. The route is extremely hilly, first up, then down, grades over 8%. On the final down slope we dropped down to Bear Lake. It is an extremely large lake bordering Utah and Idaho. We were very impressed and had vowed to return.



Interestingly the Utah side has more commercial development; the Idaho side is comprised mostly of high-end, gated, summer housing communities. Campgrounds on the Utah side charge in excess of $50/night. We're staying in an Idaho State Park for less than half that price.

Bear Lake State Park is pretty remote. The camp sites are dispersed. This is our picnic table looking out over the lake.



Our site has 30 amp electric power and water is available to fill an RV tank; there is a dump station for RVs. Clearly most people who come here are boaters. It appears that families take their sun shelter to the "beach" for the day and 1. if a boater, water ski or jet ski, or 2. if they have small children, the children can play on the beach. The state provides modern outhouses. There are no showers. However, we've noticed that many of the "weekenders" put up personal "comfort station" structures.



That is either a two seat outhouse ???? or an outhouse and a shower structure. (I can't figure this out because the state has provided extremely clean modern chemical toilets.) Today is Friday. As the "weekenders" arrived we saw more of these "comfort stations" being errected. :-) We leave on Saturday.:-)

Sunset across Bear lake was pretty every evening.



What a wonderful view from our campsite.

Fellow RVers: I would not come here on a weekend. During the week, it was peaceful and quiet. As we watched the weekenders arrive on Friday, we were amazed by the number of people occupying a single site (and the number of large, barking dogs). Based on observed behavior in the late afternoon, we expected that the night would be rowdy ---- but thankfully we think that the mosquitos drove people inside! This is the first government campground we have been where there was no official presence, no camphosts, no rangers, no maintenance people,etc. hence our concern....

Leslie