Traveling the Scenic Juniper Mountain Loop Road

Saturday October 15, 2022 Juniper Mountain Loop Rd., ID.

We woke here after a good night’s rest. We think we are through all the rough rocky stuff and about a half mile from a good graveled road.

Van repairs

Yesterday I had a real hard time trying to shift the four wheel drive in and out so something was wrong with that and I needed to have a look at it before we took off.

I got the stuff out to crawl under the van to have a look at the shifting stuff. It all looked good. I checked the oil in the transfer case and it was full up so there must be something else wrong.

The solution

I decided to run the van up and down the little road we were on and try to shift it. After running up and down the road a couple of times and still no shift I figured maybe the new tires I put on the back were causing the transfer case to bind and not shift so I disengaged the front hubs to let the pressure off and tried it again and that worked well.  The new tires are slightly larger than the old ones as the old ones have worn. There’s about a half inch difference in their diameters.

So for now, I have to take the hubs out to relieve the gear pressure, so it will shift, when I need to shift it, which is only when we get into the rough stuff.

When I get home I’ll get two more new tires so they all match and all should be good.

For now, I can make it work.

Juniper Mountain Loop Rd.

We got on the road around 11 and about a half mile down the road turned onto this road, which is a well graveled road, much smoother than the roads we’ve been on in the last couple of days so we could travel 35 to 45 mile as hour, compared to the one or two miles an hour we’d been doing on the rough stuff.

Bunch of birds

I spied a bunch of ravens off to the side of the road on top of something, I think a dead cow, so we stopped so I could have a look, but they were too far off the road to tell what was going on.

Juniper trees

There were lots of Juniper trees all along the route. They seemed to be doing well in this area.

The road was really good and scenic and no one pushing up our rear so we just poked along.

We had about thirty miles of this road to do today and we were making good time.

We like quaking aspens, especially in their fall colors and we got to drive through these ones.

This is the lushest ranch we saw on this road. There weren’t too many ranches as there are a lot of wilderness areas.

Today’s destination

We were headed to a place they call Three Forks where the road can get across the river. The signs all said North Fork so I think they chanced the name some where along the way.

We were hoping to find some suitable camping near the crossing.

River crossing

We made it to the bridge that crosses the river and stopped to have a look.

There was lots of water in the North Fork of the Owyhee River. I think it was dammed up by man or beaver. Looked real nice.

Camp ground

There was a camp area near the river crossing but it had too many campers in it for our liking so we passed it up hoping to find a camp spot up the road a bit.

We climbed out of the river gorge and were crossing over this area when we saw a small dirt road taking off to the left so we took it.

Tonight’s camp spot

We didn’t need much for a camp spot and found this little pull into spot along the road when it topped a small hill.

Nice easy day

Compared to what we’d been doing in the last couple of days, this was a real easy day. It sure went through some nice countryside today.

Tomorrow’s plans

We will drive on out of here back to highway 95 and go North to Jordan Valley to gas up then turn back south and turn on to a dirt road just south of Jordan Valley and we should be back in the boonies again. We will be going to a place they call Cow Lakes and then make some more plans from there

I  should be able to post all  my blogs at Jordan Valley.

Nice day.