Armed with an Idaho Road & Recreation Atlas, we set off last Sunday about noon from Boise ID.

Take Bogus Basin road north right outta downtown (Note – avoid the weekend of the Hulls Gulch Park Arts and Craps fair! Good grief) North on Bogus Basin road, nice easy two lane winding paved highway. But beware – it’s recreation central for the fitness-crazies of Boise. You’ll pass bicyclists going up and down the road, pretty much not worrying about their placement on the road in relation to motor vehicles. Also people pulling off at random corners to park and unload hikers, horses, motorcycles, etc.

Takes about an hour and you’ll be at Bogus Basin Ski area (hosting an off-road triathalon the weekend we were there – we figured out one leg of the event was trail running, one was down-hill mountain biking, no idea what the third might be. We didn’t particularly want to run up OR down that hill!).

The forest road you want for your 4WD adventure actually cuts off about ½ mile before Bogus Basin ski area, to the East side of Bogus Basin road. One simple Forest Route marker, #275, and you’ll only see it on your right as you are headed up the hill.

Note - Next time we’ll go armed with a better map, because our travels took us past roads marked 275D, 275E, 1096, etc etc. Not on our general recreation map. But we stuck to the main route for this adventure.

The route takes you on a fairly gentle climb and decent of a couple thousand feet, single lane dirt/gravel road, spectacular views of Boise National Forest to your East and the Boise Basin down below to the Southwest. Road is two-wheel drive in best weather. I imagine as it gets wet it might be interesting in some places, but not really enough to register on the any but the mildest pucker-meter. There are constant erosion gullies across and paralleling the direction of travel, so take it very slow. Interestingly – where we came out on Sunset Ridge Road the sign says it is closed to travel in the winter months, so I wonder if they gate the top end as well, or if one or more of the other routes stays open year-round for the hearty four-wheeler or other recreational use?

Lots of out-of-the-way places to stop for picnics, bonfires and mid-night graduation parties. But you are only an hour from Boise, so the area does get quite a bit of vehicle traffic. We probably saw a dozen vehicles parked in various places as we went over the wooded 6-8 miles. Several spots are noted as formal trail heads, open to mountain bikers, hikers, motorcycles, ATVs or horses. Or some combination of those access methods. Once it opens up closer to town, there is much more parking opportunities and you’ll meet much more traffic.

So roughly, we went NE on 275, south on 374/Boise Ridge Road, West on 231/Sunset Peak Road. An easy day. Next time we’ll swing farther East on a spur toward Crooked Summit and Roble Creek. A Jeep we passed advised us not to go that way - it goes “way the F**** to Idaho City!” Sounds perfect.