So here we are Chad, not in Boise. Correct we're not in boise
but sometimes that can be cool. We are on the beautiful Bruneau Canyon.
Chad I've lived here for 15 years, I've never been able to
find this canyon. Actually the last time I came here I got
lost, took a wrong turn and wrecked my Subaru.
Really because it's pretty clearly marked on the way out.
It's not, the dunes are clearly marked, two miles that way, very easy.
Okay I might have missed the sign. I think they were repairing it when I
drove by last time. I think it's bigger than the sign for the Bruneau Dunes.
I definitely should have seen the one stop.
Yeah hot springs road is where you're gonna go. Nice lovely drive out. The last
little bit is dirt road. You can take a trip out to
the Bruneau Canyon, hike along the rim it's absolutely stunningly beautiful.
And then after you do that you can come back into your campsite at the Bruneau Dunes
and take in the observatory at night and
then the next morning you can get up, rent a couple of boards and slide down
the dunes.
This is actually my first time seeing the canyon.
The thing I like the most about this canyon is you can come here, at most i've
ever seen one car at the overlook. If you want to just
escape town and escape like everything and sit on a rock and stare
out in the abyss for a while and just chill this is amazing place.
You can hear the river going down there right now, the Bruneau River is kind
of cruising down to the canyon. If you're doing the dunes I would hate
for somebody to miss the opportunity to come out here.
It's a magical spot I mean there's not very many places you can come stand at a
thousand foot deep canyon in the middle desert and have
pretty much zero people around you.
So we're at this beautiful canyon and I have seen rattlesnakes out here before.
So I think it's good to be rattlesnake wise.
One of the things you can do when you're hiking with rattlesnakes is you can do a
little stop if you're scared of them once in a while boom boom boom. They can
sense the ground vibration. I love hiking poles to help with my
knees and you can also stick those out in front of you a little bit if you want.
And just keep your eyes in front of
you and watch out to see if there's any
snakes now if you haven't heard rattlesnake before
and you hear something that sounds like "zzzz" that's the rattlesnake politely
reminding you that they are there and they will normally do that so
they're actually a really nice snake to hike around because
they give you a little alarm when you're there.
So you just want to be aware of that and then the next thing you want to be aware
of is use a little common sense it's a
thousand foot deep canyon okay so don't walk right up to the edge if
you're not comfortable with walking right up to the edge.
Right? Hiking poles might give you a little bit of stability but still use
common sense people the trail goes along this.
Right at the overlook of course it's safe for children. There's big fences
nobody can get through that but once you start down this canyon rim
you're on your own. Well Chad you were right this is an
awesome canyon, this is a beautiful place, but there are a lot of rocks on the
ground. I'd like to sleep on something softer and I'd like to check out the
stars. So let's head back to the sand dunes,
let's check out the observatory, but first we're going to take a quick
30 second break. Stay with us, we'll be right back
at the Bruneau Sand Dunes. It's the Boise Convention and Visitors Bureau's mission
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Okay so we've made it back to Bruneau Sand Dunes and this is the wagon wheel
campsite. This is great, they've got hookups for
RV's, they've got picnic tables, fire pits,
bathrooms, even showers. So we have decided to
set up camp here and wait for night to fall when we'll
head over to the observatory and check out the stars.
So from mid-March until about mid-October we have our observatory
evenings here and you can come out we have a solar
scope where you can view the sun. Se play videos, have a live presentation
and then you can use our telescopes to view stars and planets,
galaxies, nebulae.
All right so we've woken up. We decided to stay the night
because we wanted to get here early and get our boards
because later in the day there's a good chance you might not be able to rent one.
She said in the summertime by 11 o'clock in the morning it's 80 degrees so if you
really want to get a board come in the morning, get a board. You can
keep it all day but after it's 80 degrees at the dunes they don't rent them.
They also said after the sand reaches 80 degrees wear socks because it can burn
your skin and then you come out here and they
reiterate it again with a caution sand temperatures can reach extreme levels
please use caution. So kind of like at the Bruneau Canyon
use a little common sense people. If you go out there and the
sand feels super hot wear some socks, wear some Chacos
and have some fun.
You may be wondering how did these dunes
get here and just for a note this dune over here is the tallest
single structure dune in North America. Over thousands of years this little dip
in this valley here has collected sands from all around these plateaus.
So that's how these dunes have formed. Now to go on the dunes and have some fun
you can take either my preferred is the sit upon
sled board of which you're going to wax every time you go up and down
and you can go quite fast. My children are experiencing that right now in the
background. And as Jon prefers the snowboard style
sand board which you can put your feet in, lock in and go down
with like a snowboard. Some other things to expect while you're out there is
wear glasses and keep your mouth shut because the first time I came down I
wasn't wearing glasses and I was like "hahahaha" and I got a mouthful of sand and sand in
my eyes too. So other than that have fun. You can wipe
out in the sand. It's soft and nothing's going to happen to you.
Now once again with these boards they give you a little
thing of wax just like that. Wee little bitty thing.
Every time you go up the dune you're going to hike up before you
go down you're going to wipe off all the sand off the bottom of your board and
then for the entire board you're just going
to take this wax and wax and wax and wax. That's what this does so
it makes your board just like haul down the dunes.
Ready, set, go.
That's where you got to keep your mouth shut.
Yeah yeah you know maybe not wearing a hat's a good idea too.
I did not keep my mouth shut so i'm kind of like chewing. I don't know
if you can hear that nice abrasion, teeth whitening thing going on. But uh
very crunchy. Yeah So chad there's more to do than
just sand boarding and sand sledding they
also have this great lake over here that offers other
opportunities. Yeah people just go out there on their stand-up
paddleboards. You can cool off in the afternoon with a nice dip in the lake.
People bring their canoes and other watercraft out here to fish. I even saw
a nice lady painting. Yes that's another activity plein air painting.
She was just standing out there painting this really beautiful watercolor of the
the lake and the big dune. So maybe you do
your hikes on the sand and you're sand boarding sand sledding in the morning
and then you come out here and you hit the lake in the afternoon.
Cool off, put your feet in. Other thing this lake because there is water it also
comes with mosquitoes. Okay common sense people, bug spray every time
you're in the outdoors, sunblock, water. Okay the three things people, the
three pillars of the outdoors if you will. Well it's starting to heat up and I
would say this lake water feels real nice, cools me down.
My favorite part about today was the teeth whitening abrasion from the Bruneau
Sand Dunes that I got while I told myself to keep my mouth shut.
I was just like "hahaha" and I think my teeth are a bit whiter. You actually have some sand
still left in your beard as well so I think you might have to wash yourself
off in the lake. Okay. All right thanks for
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