Behind the intriguing town of Gilmore resides the campground
of Meadow Lake. I had first heard about this from Cal-Ranch's website as one of
the best kept secrets for this area. Judging from the amount of traffic it has
through there the secret is out. Meadow Lake is basically a bowl formed on all
sides by massive mountains. The snow and runoff water goes into the middle of
this bowl to form Meadow Lake. The lake is then stocked by our f(r)iends from
fish and game from time to time. Plenty of hiking trails to take through the
draws of the mountain and for the more adventurous folk, mountain climbing as
well.
My only complaint about the whole adventure is that the
camping sites were built too closely to another. Which, if you have decent
neighbors is not an issue, but it our case it was a big issue. Camping in Idaho
for a number of years lends a certain respect of the wilderness and its
inhabitants. Bears are a major concern for our area, as well as any wildlife
creature and with bear signs posted everywhere it reminds you; you are the intruder. So here is my example of how not to camp:
These people have left all their food out in the open;
campfire is still burning and they spent the whole day at lake with no one at
their site. They left this fire going since 12:00 am at night when they were
chopping wood with an axe. My wife had quite enough of the wood cutting in the
am and yelled at their general direction to stop (or something similiar). They then proceeded to let
their children run wild through the whole campsite during the day without supervision. Despite this we managed to
have a good time, despite any lack of camp etiquette on our neighbor’s behalf.
