Bear Lake to Lava Hot Springs in StanVan
Craters, Hail, and Eight Free Bucks
This is part two of the StanWilds trip log. If you missed part one, we left Denver and spent three days fighting our way to Bear Lake, Utah – through the Snowy Range, Saratoga’s hot springs, Flaming Gorge, and a Sheep Creek Canyon that tried to kill us with ramen. By the time we rolled out of the Bear Lake KOA, the trip had already taught us its first lesson: decide to bring the bikes, then actually bring the bikes.
Part two is where the trip stops being a shakedown and starts being an adventure. Lava fields that look like another planet. Mountain passes with their own weather. A hailstorm that picked a fight. A windshield that decided to rain indoors. And a stranger in a WinCo parking lot who quietly paid for our groceries.
Spoiler: it involves crawling through lava tubes, getting hail-stoned, and a raclette dinner cooked over a campfire.
Day 4: Bear Lake to Craters of the Moon (with a CPA Course Streamed at 70 MPH)
We pointed StanVan north along the western shore of Bear Lake and let the lake slide by the window. About halfway up its length we ticked over from Utah into Idaho – one of those small, satisfying trip milestones you feel in your chest more than you should.
The whole day was built around reaching Craters of the Moon early enough to actually get out and explore the lava tubes. We cruised north and west, brushing the edge of Pocatello (saw the universities from the highway, didn’t stop – Pocatello wasn’t the mission), and somewhere along the way a very specific craving landed: Taco Time. Stacy always wants a Taco Time when we travel; we don’t have any near Denver, and a crispy bean burrito is pure Northwest childhood for her. The only ones we found were gas-station attachments, and none were open. A closed gas-station Taco Time is about as useful as no Taco Time. We filed the craving away and kept driving.
Here’s where StanVan’s newest toy earned its keep. For my CPA license, Colorado makes you take a CPA Rules and Regulations course within six months of getting licensed – deadline at the end of July. So at 70 miles an hour down the highway, I streamed the whole thing over our Starlink Mini. No buffering, no “can you hear me now,” just continuing education at interstate speed. Great success.
Then Arco, and Number Hill – exactly what it sounds like: a rocky hillside scrawled with numbers. We didn’t stop; we slowed down and shot a photo from the window, watching decades of graduation years stacked up the slope. It’s a small-town tradition that’s somehow both deeply silly and genuinely moving, and we spent a few miles guessing at the older classes and wondering what it felt like to climb up there with a bucket of paint, year after year, and why anyone started it in the first place.
From there it’s a short shot to Craters of the Moon. We grabbed our permit before heading into the tubes – the park makes you decon gear so you don’t drag in White-nose syndrome, a fungus (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) that’s wiped out huge chunks of bat populations. No known cure, some species down more than 90% in five years.1 The permit’s a small ask to keep that out of the lava-tube bats. Easy yes.
We camped just inside the gate, locked the bikes to the picnic table, ate a quick wrap, and ran the loop. Craters of the Moon is genuinely alien – black lava, cinder cones, not a green thing in sight. It took me straight back to the lava fields I lived near in Iceland as a kid, a memory I did not expect a road trip through Idaho to unlock.
We hiked a couple of short walkways, then climbed the tallest cinder cone for the wide, strange view from above, then made for the two caves you’re allowed into. The first was a letdown – you drop in through a collapsed roof and it peters out both ways in a few steps. Small. A little boring. The second was the opposite: a quarter-mile of cathedral-sized tube, cool and damp and smelling of stone and old water, with sunlight pouring through a string of roof collapses. We kept our headlamps handy for the dark stretches, and we kept looking for bats. We never found any. They were deeper than we were allowed to go, or tucked into the miles of untouched tubes and crevices out there; we were only ever going to see a small glimpse of what the lava fields held. Standing in that cool, musty dark, thinking about lava running through here and air pockets freezing into these shapes, made us feel small in the best way.
Back at camp I finished the course and passed the exam – certification, handled, from a site carved into a lava field. We never stay up past sundown; we’re both early-to-bed people. But even in the blue hour, with a night breeze moving through a scrappy tree, it felt like we were camped in the middle of the moon. Dinner was the second half of the chicken we’d marinated before leaving (night one got the first half), cooked with Knorr Cajun rice – nothing dramatic, just the quiet contentment of exploring new country with the person you came with.
Tomorrow we climbed into the mountains, and I was ready for cooler air.
Day 5: Craters to Stanley, a Hailstorm, and a Windshield That Decided to Rain Indoors
We packed up and eased out of the park, dumping trash and recycling at the visitor center’s big bins in the RV lot – a small but real quality-of-life win when you’ve been living in a van for days.
We turned north toward Sun Valley and stopped for gas, but should’ve grabbed groceries too. Note for the future: load up in the bigger towns, because the pickings get thin fast once you’re in the mountain burgs. One of the rare times I took the wheel, I pulled into a spot after gassing up and absolutely introduced my knee to the dashboard getting out – the seat was still set for Stacy. It’s not the first time I’ve introduced a joint to the van’s interior; Stacy was apologetic even though it wasn’t her fault, and we’ve learned to laugh at these things after the fact. Like the time I fell clean out of a hammock while camping and she couldn’t stop laughing. This one was more subdued and hurt considerably more, but the principle held: eventually, it’s funny.
North through the mountains to the Galena Pass overlook, looking out over the Sawtooth Range and the Salmon River. I shot some frames on the Sony A7CR – if you’re on this corridor, pull off; the Sawtooths don’t need help looking dramatic, but the overlook frames them perfectly.
Then Redfish Lake, where the weather turned on us the second we reached the trailhead. We’d planned to take in the view from near the visitor center and then run a few miles out on the Fishhook Creek Trail, which looked picture-perfect under the Sawtooths. We geared up and made for the center; halfway there the sky opened and we sprinted through a downpour. We rode out the worst of it inside – thunder and lightning rolling – then walked back to the van in drizzle, and a second wave killed the hike entirely.
Sure enough, the hail came right behind the lightning – both born of the same violent cumulonimbus, which is why a storm that electrifies usually hails too.
That storm also exposed a problem we didn’t know we had. We’d noticed water collecting on the second morning after rain and snow, but wrote it off as condensation. Now, parked at the Redfish trailhead, we watched it come down the column in front of the passenger door in actual rivulets, pooling in the footwell, and it kept coming even once we were driving. Crap. What’s this going to cost? Is it an emergency? Can we fold it into the other fixes the van needs? We talked it through and landed on non-emergency – a rust-above-the-windshield seal issue to handle next time it’s in the shop.
We bailed on the hike and headed north, then off the main road to Stanley, Idaho, camping just west of town. In town we got fully duped by “Stanley Spirit” – thought it was a liquor store, turned out to be Stanley-and-Salmon-River merch, spirit-week style. The mercantile was a weak grocery at best (camping basics and grilling, not staples) but had a liquor store inside, so we grabbed a couple things, postcards, and a few restock items.
At Stanley RV and Camp our neighbor – full-time in a Ford Transit, remote work plus the occasional house-sit – talked about moving with the seasons and always chasing the cool, wisdom we’d already put into practice by routing this trip for altitude and cooler air in the summer heat.
Rain kept coming, so we threw out the awning and staked it for a dry entry by the sliding door, and realized we need a better door mat – something that lets dirt sift through. Ordered a sand blanket for exactly that. The rest of the evening was easy: read, YouTube, leftovers, then inside once it got cold. Up in those mountains the Espar ran all night – a little gasoline heater tucked into the van that sips fuel from the main tank and quietly keeps the whole space warm. It’s become one of our favorite decisions; on a cold, drizzly night in the Sawtooths, it’s the difference between tolerating the weather and not thinking about it at all.
Day 6: Stanley Lake Fog, Riverside Hot Springs We Missed, and a Stranger Who Paid for Our Groceries
Cold morning – getting the bikes back on the rack was brutal on the fingers, those rubber straps biting into cold skin. But we packed and tossed the trash in the campground bin. We skipped the campground showers, holding out for the KOA at Lava Hot Springs after a soak.
First, Stanley Lake – our planned turnaround. It was socked in with thick fog, but I got the Sony A7CR on it and caught some great frames of the lake steaming under a low, dense layer. Not the alpine view we wanted, but unreal all the same, and the raw files are waiting for their turn in the editing queue.
Back to the road east of Stanley and north toward Challis, where we realized the river was lined with natural hot springs the whole way – public pools people had built from river stone, mixing cold river water with hot water seeping from the hillside. We hadn’t planned for it and blew right past. Next time, that stretch gets its own detour.
From Challis we dropped south to Arco, passed Number Hill again, and basically retraced Day 4. We’d actually passed this KOA back on Day 4 while I was buried in the CPA course instead of the scenery – Stacy scoped it.
The one real stop was the Idaho Potato Museum – better than expected, if small, ending in a cafe loaded with potato food. We skipped the cafe but grabbed local potato chips for the road.
Then Pocatello, and finally an open Taco Time – after two closed gas-station false starts. Standalone, in a WinCo parking lot. Crispy bean burritos and mexi-fries (seasoned tater tots), and Stacy was right back in a Northwest childhood. SUCCESS!
Next door was WinCo – our first ever. It read like Costco from the outside, so we checked we didn’t need a membership (we don’t), but what didn’t show up in that search is that WinCo only takes cash, debit, or check.3 We had plenty of cash and debit cards with us, but not on us. Instead they were in the van, parked across the ocean sized lot back at the Taco Time. I stood at checkout with about eight dollars of groceries – fingerling potatoes, a loaf of French bread, one Tillamook Greek yogurt – while Stacy walked back to the van for a debit card. Suddenly a woman came up to me and said, “here’s your receipt, you’re good to go.” A woman in the next line, having overheard us, took pity. While I wasn’t paying attention she paid for our groceries. I was dumb-struck. I can only imagine that we looked like vagrants, all camp-grimey, unshowered, and couldn’t afford the $8 grocery bill. I thanked her profusely and then immediately called Stacy to tell her she didn’t have to come back to the grocery store. There I was hauling eight bucks of food back to a hundred-thousand-dollar van, which made the kindness feel both weird and quietly humbling. One of those small graces from a stranger that sticks with you.
At Lava Hot Springs we set up and walked in with our suits. The pools were packed, so we hit Eruption Brewery and Bistro first – a few beers, Stacy ran a flight – figuring the families would clear out near dinner. They did, and we had the pools mostly to ourselves. The coolest pool was still plenty hot, and with the day toasty at five o’clock and the sun still beating down, any hotter would’ve tipped it straight into heat stroke. We couldn’t stop commenting on the water – it smelled clean and fresh, none of the sulfur funk you brace for at most hot springs. Turns out the source is naturally low-sulfur, so it starts clear. The town’s built around water – river tubing, a big water park – a great spot for families or a few lazy days.
After the soak we showered, built a fire, and did a raclette dinner on pie irons – a smoked mozzarella and a proper raclette cheese, both phenomenal, plus a smoked gouda we didn’t even need once the mozzarella showed up. Fancy cheese, summer sausage, French bread, melted over the coals. All of it a triumph. The one thing missing was potatoes; next time, spuds in the mix would’ve made it a real meal instead of bread, meat, and cheese. After the first batch we set the griddle over the fire and rested the irons on it for even heat and a level surface – a small campfire-cooking upgrade we’ll repeat. Later: reading, YouTube, the fire, and a crew of middle-aged women nearby playing cornhole and raising hell – solid people-watching.
The Middle of the Trip
The middle stretch gave StanVan another shakedown – more hiking, more weather, more small-town logistics – and the systems kept up. Starlink earned its place again: a live CPA course at 70 mph, the exam from a lava-field campsite, weather checks in the middle of nowhere. The food system held: marinated chicken across two nights, Knorr sides, wraps, leftovers, and a pie-iron raclette over the fire – flexible beats elaborate. Craters of the Moon delivered alien terrain, a cinder-cone climb, two very different tubes, and the humbling thought of lava and bats beneath us. And Taco Time was worth the chase: two days of closed gas-station false starts, then a real one in Pocatello – childhood nostalgia, secured.
If you’re running a similar Idaho loop, the takeaways from Days 4 through 6:
- Arco Number Hill is a quick, free, genuinely charming stop – painted by every Butte County High School graduating class since 1920.2 Slow down and look; don’t just blow past it like we almost did.
- Craters of the Moon needs time. Camp inside the gate, drive the loop, climb a cone, do both tubes. Bring a headlamp.
- Respect the cave decontamination rules. White-nose syndrome is devastating to bats.
- Galena Pass overlook is worth the stop for the Sawtooth and Salmon River views.
- Plan for weather at Redfish Lake. We got hail, thunder, and a washout. Have a backup and rain layers.
By Lava Hot Springs the trip had stacked up the full range of vanlife emotion: triumph (CPA exam, passed, from a campsite), disappointment (a hike washed out by hail), mild horror (a windshield that leaked like a gutter), delight (a stranger covering our groceries), and plain contentment (a fire, raclette, people-watching).
We didn’t run this stretch perfectly either – smashed a knee, missed groceries, got rained out, found a leak. We also nailed what mattered: the driving, the hiking, the soaking, the food, and the gear that kept us comfortable and connected.
That feels like the right middle chapter for StanWilds.
And the trip wasn’t done. The next day we pointed south to Rock Springs, where friends’ parents put us up on a two-acre property – horses in the afternoon, homemade enchiladas at night. Then home: unpack, a very excited dog retrieved from my mother-in-law, and a 4th of July barbecue to close the loop. That last leg gets its own post – but the takeaway from the middle is the part that sticks: the best road trips are the ones where the plan breaks, and the breaking is the story.
Sources
1 White-nose syndrome – no known cure; some species declined more than 90% within five years of the disease reaching a site. Source: White-nose syndrome, Wikipedia (Impact).
2 Arco Number Hill – Butte County High School graduating classes have painted the hill since 1920. Source: Arco, Idaho, Wikipedia (Geography).
3 WinCo payment policy – WinCo does not accept credit cards (debit and EBT/WIC accepted). Source: WinCo Foods, Wikipedia.