A Borah Vista field guide · Season One

Twelve Places in the Lost River Range

The hikes, hot springs, backroads and one small copper town we actually filmed — with the drive times, the seasons and the things nobody tells you.

  • 12 places, one page each — drive time from Mackay, what the road actually is, when it opens, what it costs.
  • The risky parts said plainly: the snow bridge on Borah, runoff at Sunbeam, flash floods in Spar Canyon.
  • Real businesses named, with phone numbers. Nothing in it is a paid placement.

Free. No paid placements in it. Unsubscribe in one click.

Cover of Twelve Places in the Lost River Range — Mount Borah at sunset above the valley
17 pages · 51 photographs · PDF · Letter size · prints fine, reads fine on a phone
What's inside

Everything here is within two hours of one small town.

Mackay sits at the bottom of the Lost River valley with the highest mountains in Idaho on one side and the Pioneers on the other. Four hundred and thirty-nine people, one blinking light, and more country within a two-hour radius than most states manage in total. These are the places we went while filming Season One.

  1. 01

    Mount Borah The mountain the show is named for

    Lost River Range · 20 miles north of Mackay

    Idaho's high point, 12,662 ft. Chicken Out Ridge, the snow bridge, and the 1983 quake that moved the whole valley.

    ~7–8 mi round trip · 5,262 ft of gain · 6–12 hours
  2. 02

    North Fork of the Big Lost Episode 4 · Am I Even Allowed?

    Salmon-Challis NF · off Trail Creek Road

    Free dispersed camping in a drainage with almost nobody in it. Moose in the willows, pronghorn on the sage below.

    Dispersed · free · 14-day limit · no facilities at all
  3. 03

    Trail Creek Road Episode 5 · I Live in a Van.

    FR 208 · Ketchum to Mackay over the Pioneers

    Forty-one miles of CCC-built gravel over a 7,896 ft summit. Five campgrounds, no services, no cell signal.

    ~41 mi · 1½–2 hours · mid-May to mid-November
  4. 04

    Mountain Biking Sun Valley Episode 5 · I Live in a Van.

    Ketchum & Sun Valley · Blaine County

    90+ miles of trail within five miles of town, a lift-served bike park on Baldy, and a shop that delivers the bike to you.

    Silver-level IMBA Ride Center · ~2 hr over Trail Creek
  5. 05

    Mackay Episode 8 · What Does It Cost?

    Custer County · population 439

    A copper town from 1901. The free Mine Hill Tour, the Lost River Museum, and 1,392 acres of reservoir against the range.

    Mine Hill free · museum Fri–Sat 11–4 · last fuel at Sammy’s
  6. 06

    Sunbeam Hot Springs Episode 9 · I Hit a Tree!

    Salmon River · ~12 miles east of Stanley

    Free roadside pools you mix yourself with river rock, under a 1937 CCC bathhouse that has not worked since the war.

    Free · June–October · source water near 160°F
  7. 07

    Whitewater at Stanley Episode 9 · I Hit a Tree!

    Upper Salmon River · Stanley to Sunbeam

    Twelve miles of Class II–III through a granite canyon, three hours, and an outfitter sitting right at the put-in.

    ~$100 adult · 9:30 and 2:00 daily · Memorial Day–Labor Day
  8. 08

    Challis Hot Springs The developed counterweight

    Land of the Yankee Fork State Park · Challis

    The developed counterweight to Sunbeam — two pools, a lawn, flush toilets. Idaho bought it from the Hammonds in 2023.

    $10 swim + $7 vehicle · ~1 hr 5 min from Mackay
  9. 09

    Spar Canyon Road The drive nobody tells you about

    Custer County · US-93 to the East Fork

    An hour of eroded volcanic canyon without meeting another vehicle, and a BLM herd of wild horses that will stand in the road.

    Graded dirt · no cell service · flash-flood country
  10. 10

    Morgan Creek Road The bighorn drive

    Salmon-Challis NF · 7 miles north of Challis

    Bighorn sheep on the rock above the road and free BLM camping along the creek.

    Free camping · bighorn country · bring the long lens
  11. 11

    The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge Filming this season

    Forest Road 013 · 8½ miles above Sunbeam

    A 988-ton machine sitting in the creek bottom where somebody left it in 1953 — four storeys tall, seventy-one steel buckets, three men a shift around the clock.

    $5 adults · Memorial Day–Labor Day · ~2 hr from Mackay
  12. 12

    Custer Filming this season

    Forest Road 013 · nine miles above Sunbeam

    A town that had six hundred people in it and now has none. The best-preserved ghost town in this part of Idaho, and one of the few you can walk through for free at any hour.

    Free · open 24 hours · 1–2 hours to walk it properly

Plus five more if you have the days — Earthquake Interpretive Site — the 1983 fault scarp · Craters of the Moon · Galena Summit Overlook · Copper Basin · Pass Creek Narrows.

Look inside

Every place gets a fact panel and a tip from the field.

Drive time, road surface, season, cost and cautions on every entry — then the thing we would actually tell a friend. Drive Trail Creek west to east in the late afternoon so you drop into the valley with Borah lit up ahead. Call the ranger district and ask one question: is the snow bridge still in.

The Series page — Season One episode by episode, with the places each one was shot inThe Mount Borah page — hero photo, body copy and an At a glance fact panelThe Before you go page — eight things to prepare and a list of phone numbers
When to come

September, if you get to pick.

Empty campgrounds, cold nights, gold aspen, and the roads are all still open. The guide has the full month-by-month on its last page.

May

Reservoir, Mine Hill, the museum opens. Trail Creek still closed.

June

Trail Creek opens. Big water on the Salmon. Borah still snowy.

July

Everything open. Baldy lift-served biking starts. Rodeo weekend.

August

Best Borah window. Warm springs, low rivers, flash-flood risk.

September

The sweet spot. Empty campgrounds, cold nights, gold aspen.

October+

Hot springs season. Roads start closing. Check before you drive.

Why we made this, and why it's free.

We are building something out here — seven acres of vacant ground north of Mackay, a hand-built log cabin, and a slow education in what it takes to make a place out of a piece of dirt. That's the show. This guide is the part of it you can actually use.

Everything in it is somewhere we went with a camera. The outfitters, shops and campgrounds are named because we used them, not because anyone paid — nothing in this guide is a paid placement and it says so on the page. Borah Vista promotes non-consumptive recreation only: hiking, paddling, soaking, driving, and photographing wildlife from a distance that doesn't change what the animal is doing.

Straight answers

Questions people actually ask.

How much does the guide cost?

Nothing. It is free in exchange for an email address, and it stays free. Nothing in it is a paid placement — the outfitters, shops and campgrounds named in it are places we actually used, and none of them paid to be there.

What do I actually get?

A 17-page PDF with 51 photographs. Twelve places, one page each, with drive time from Mackay, road surface, season, cost and cautions for every one — plus eight things to prepare before you go and the phone numbers worth saving.

Will you email me constantly?

No. Roughly one email a month: new spots, conditions from the valley, and first word when the cabin opens to guests. You get the updated guide each season as the list grows. Unsubscribe in one click.

Do I need a four-wheel drive?

For most of it, no. Every entry says plainly what the road actually is and what your car can handle — passenger cars are fine on Trail Creek Road, Spar Canyon and the Borah trailhead approach in dry conditions. Where clearance genuinely matters, the guide says so.

When is the best time to come?

September, if you can pick. Empty campgrounds, cold nights, gold aspen, and the roads are all still open. August is the reliable Mount Borah window. The guide has a month-by-month strip on the last page.

Is there hunting or fishing information in it?

No, deliberately. Borah Vista promotes non-consumptive recreation only — hiking, paddling, soaking, driving, and photographing wildlife from a distance that does not change what the animal is doing.

12 places. 17 pages. Free.

Go north on 93 until the range fills the windshield.

Free. No paid placements in it. Unsubscribe in one click.