Welcome to Juniper Gulch in the desert landscape of the Owyhee mountains. If you're not familiar with
the geography of southwestern Idaho, where i live in Boise, to the north are our beautiful foothills
and to the south to the far south along the Oregon and Idaho border is a mountain range called the
Owyhee mountains. I am technically in Oregon right now this is the Leslie Gulch Recreation Area.
We are smack dab in the middle of January which here in Idaho is the coldest part of the year.
January and February are always the coldest parts of the year before it starts to slowly ever so
slowly warm up in March. We also just received a ton of snow over the month of December. Great for
the skiing community, a little more challenging for the hiking and backpacking community especially
the roadways. It's hard to know which roads are open and which ones are closed. It is a dirt road
back into this area but there's very little snow and with a decent four-wheel drive car
you can make it just fine. Another question you're probably asking yourself, Jon why do
they call this Juniper Gulch? Well good viewer i will tell you why they call it Juniper Gulch.
See this floor, see all these, these are juniper berries and all around here are juniper trees
and these berries are just filling the gulch right now. I am literally walking on
juniper berries. In my experience with Idaho and this region of the pacific northwest it seems
like if you can stay under 5,000 feet of elevation you will be fine in terms of avoiding heavy snow.
It seems like 5,000 feet is where snow sticks and develops. Under 5,000 feet sure you'll get snow but
it'll melt pretty quickly. Take a day like today where the high is going to be about 37 38 sunny
lows are going to be 19 tonight so it doesn't stay super cold and that snow doesn't stick
around for long. So if you're looking for hikes in the winter time try to check for elevations below
5,000 feet and go from there. Now today's hike is a nice and easy 4.8 miles out back and 1300 feet of
elevation gain and today we're hunting for views. A beautiful 360 vista view on the top of a plateau
called Yellow Jacket. That's where i hope to set up camp you know me i like to camp even
though it's absolutely freezing out here this can obviously be a simple day hike. By the way
based on my map i believe that this is Yellow Jacket and the plateau where i'll be staying.
Now the one thing that's really going to make this 2.4 miles from the trailhead to Yellow Jacket
a little more of a slog is the fact that i'm carrying about five liters of water with me
because there is no water source on this route so if you're going to backpack or
camp out here you have to carry your own water which is kind of a bummer but since it's such
a short trip and only one night i will tough it out i will tough it out. The trudge is on.
Why do i carry so much stuff?
There goes the sun. If you couldn't put two and two together this is Yellow Jacket i don't know point,
plateau, pinnacle. As advertised a beautiful 360 degree view i can see all the way to Owyhee lake.
So obviously if you've watched youtube and you've watched different channels on youtube every
youtuber, creator, whatever, has a certain style. As i look on my videos there's kind of
three aspects to each video and one is definitely the more vlog type style which
we started this video out with and which i'm doing now. It's freezing cold here
but i'm super comfy. My camera's like freezing over. The second thing i like to do is what you
just witnessed and what this summer i finally came up with a term for it i call them vibes.
A segment of the video where i'm not talking and there's some hopefully really cinematic imagery
and some awesome music that i hope just inspires a sense of awe in the wilderness. But then there's a
third thing that i do with my videos and that is the more silent. The no talking, no music, where i
really focus on the audio and try to almost draw someone in. I like to call it nature asmr almost
but that doesn't have a really good ring to it. I've been trying to think of
what to call those segments and i just came up with it today.
We're going to call those nature breaks. And so as the sun sets, and the stars come out,
enjoy this nature break in the Owyhee mountains.
Here's some more hiking and backpacking videos for you, gear reviews over here, youtube thinks
you'll like this one. Thanks for watching i'll see you next time.