SW Idaho Overlanding West/East Idaho Overland Route (WEIOR)

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GHCOE

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Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
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SW Idaho Overlanding West/East Idaho Overlanding Route. This is something that I have been thinking about for a few years now. I know about the IDBDR that runs North/South, but there is no West/East route. Although the IDBDR is there, it is really just a lot of forest and back country road travel. A Idaho West/East route could easily be built using the same idea with forest and back country roads for sure. I decided however to make a more challenging route. I gave myself some criteria to go by.

-10% or less paved roads
-No using already known Back Country Routes
-Try and use roads less often used
-Try and go through some areas that are interesting to see
-Stay 100% in Idaho
-Try and keep the route as low as possible in elevation
-Stay as isolated as possible

This proved to be more difficult than it sounded in my head.

South West Idaho and Central Idaho I already knew pretty well. The difficult area was to the east of American Falls, Idaho. I did not really want to get into the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and there is a lot more populated areas over there as well as mountains that go North/South with less roads. There really was no way to avoid these areas that I could find.

One of the biggest issues in East Idaho was where to cross the populated areas and keep the pavement time down to a minimum. I also wanted to stay as isolated as possible without going through multiple towns. This proved to take quite a bit of time to figure out. Finally, I think, I found a route that keeps the pavement down to a minimum. More than I wanted at one time, 13.17 miles, but with no other options it is what it is. This does however keep it down to one town which is perfect for a fuel/supplies stop.

For the rest of the state I had good knowledge of the roads and routes I would be taking. There are some new to me roads, at this time, that I have not been on. Drawing from previous trips I was able to piece a lot of them or portions of them into this West/East Route.

How did I do with my criteria? Well, if the route works out the way I have it now it is quite good I feel.

-10% or less paved roads. I have achieved this one. The Route, as it stands now, is 541.3 miles border to border. This is with 35.76 miles of pavement total with the longest stretch being 13.17 miles. This comes in at 6.6% dirt/gravel for the entire route.
-No using already known Back Country Routes. Well there is one point where I had to use 5.28 miles of the Owhyee Back Country Byway in two locations. Being that far out in the middle of nowhere there really was no other option that made sense. I had to take a bit of a hit on that one, but I feel it is acceptable due to the area.
-Try and use roads less often used. This one is a bit tricky since what I think is less often used may be different to the next person. I feel, however, pretty good about this criteria for the most part of this route. Once I got to the Eastern part of the state, I feel this slip a bit. Sure, still probably less used roads, but I was limited to country dirt/gravel or forest roads. The population and terrain just does not allow for roads that I generally like to use. Sure I could find roads that I like to use, they just don't go to where I wanted to go. Usually they were dead ends. So I give this one a 3/4 success. Which I feel is not too bad considering it is a 541.3 mile route across Idaho's widest part. You are bound to find limitations.
-Try and go through some areas that are interesting to see. I did manage to hit some interesting areas. Most are divided by large areas that may not be too interesting. Just the nature of the beast of trying to get from one boarder to the other using mostly dirt. There are some long miles of nothing as well. Once I get a run through all this I will know more of where to camp and update the info as time moves on.
-Stay 100% in Idaho. This was achieved. After all it is the Idaho West/East Route.
-Try and keep the route as low as possible in elevation. I wanted to keep the entire route low in elevation in hopes that the route would be open for use during the spring and fall. This would leave the IDBDR available for the summer season since it would be too hot to be in the desert in the summer anyway. Most of the route is in the 5000-6000 foot range. there are two high points. One on the west side at 6228 feet and one on the east side at 7028 feet. I will have to do more research on these areas to see when they may be open for travel. Most of the interior could probably be used in the wintertime as well. If that is you thing.
-Stay as isolated as possible. As with using roads less often used, this would be considered different to each person. For most of the trip I believe you will feel pretty isolated. And again, once you get to the eastern part of the state that feeling may go away a bit. Depending on your idea of isolation.
The route will not be for the average overlander. I intend for it to be a bit of a challenge, in some areas, for driver and vehicle. The route will not be for AWD's or low clearance 4x4's. No Subaru is going to feel at home on portions of this route. A bit of clearance and a two-speed transfer case will be needed in areas. A big portion of the roads I chose on this route are not maintained by anyone.

I have come up with 4 legs to the route. Each leg being different in their own way. Each leg begins and ends with a resupply point for food and fuel.

-Leg 1 205.3 total miles. 7.33 paved
-Leg 2 89.4 total miles 4.09 paved
-Leg 3 160.0 total miles 10.67 paved
-Leg 4 86.6 total miles 13.17 paved

Well, I am running leg 1 of the route next month. It is the longest and most remote of the 4 legs. Next spring, I am planning on doing legs 2-4 to verify the route is doable. If all goes well, I will release the route to fellow overlanders to enjoy. I hope the SW Idaho Overlanding's West/East Idaho Overland Route will be a success for us all. George.
 
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reaver

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Got a few questions for you George.

- Are we expecting any water crossings on the first leg of the trip?
- You answered this for me, but let's have you put it here so folks who plan on attending can see: Is there a fuel stop on the first section of the trail?
- What altitude do you anticipate we'll be camping at?

Looking forward to making this trek with you! I'm excited for the wife to drive her new toy as well.
 
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GHCOE

Rank IV

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SW Idaho
Got a few questions for you George.

- Are we expecting any water crossings on the first leg of the trip? None that I know of.
- You answered this for me, but let's have you put it here so folks who plan on attending can see: Is there a fuel stop on the first section of the trail? No. 205 miles between fuel stops
- What altitude do you anticipate we'll be camping at? About 3700.

Looking forward to making this trek with you! I'm excited for the wife to drive her new toy as well.
It will give her some experience.
 
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GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
SW Idaho Overlanding West/East Idaho Overlanding Route. This is something that I have been thinking about for a few years now. I know about the IDBDR that runs North/South, but there is no West/East route. Although the IDBDR is there, it is really just a lot of forest and back country road travel. A Idaho West/East route could easily be built using the same idea with forest and back country roads for sure. I decided however to make a more challenging route. I gave myself some criteria to go by.

-10% or less paved roads
-No using already known Back Country Routes
-Try and use roads less often used
-Try and go through some areas that are interesting to see
-Stay 100% in Idaho
-Try and keep the route as low as possible in elevation
-Stay as isolated as possible

This proved to be more difficult than it sounded in my head.

South West Idaho and Central Idaho I already knew pretty well. The difficult area was to the east of American Falls, Idaho. I did not really want to get into the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and there is a lot more populated areas over there as well as mountains that go North/South with less roads. There really was no way to avoid these areas that I could find.

One of the biggest issues in East Idaho was where to cross the populated areas and keep the pavement time down to a minimum. I also wanted to stay as isolated as possible without going through multiple towns. This proved to take quite a bit of time to figure out. Finally, I think, I found a route that keeps the pavement down to a minimum. More than I wanted at one time, 13.17 miles, but with no other options it is what it is. This does however keep it down to one town which is perfect for a fuel/supplies stop.

For the rest of the state I had good knowledge of the roads and routes I would be taking. There are some new to me roads, at this time, that I have not been on. Drawing from previous trips I was able to piece a lot of them or portions of them into this West/East Route.

How did I do with my criteria? Well, if the route works out the way I have it now it is quite good I feel.

-10% or less paved roads. I have achieved this one. The Route, as it stands now, is 541.3 miles border to border. This is with 35.76 miles of pavement total with the longest stretch being 13.17 miles. This comes in at 6.6% dirt/gravel for the entire route.
-No using already known Back Country Routes. Well there is one point where I had to use 5.28 miles of the Owhyee Back Country Byway in two locations. Being that far out in the middle of nowhere there really was no other option that made sense. I had to take a bit of a hit on that one, but I feel it is acceptable due to the area.
-Try and use roads less often used. This one is a bit tricky since what I think is less often used may be different to the next person. I feel, however, pretty good about this criteria for the most part of this route. Once I got to the Eastern part of the state, I feel this slip a bit. Sure, still probably less used roads, but I was limited to country dirt/gravel or forest roads. The population and terrain just does not allow for roads that I generally like to use. Sure I could find roads that I like to use, they just don't go to where I wanted to go. Usually they were dead ends. So I give this one a 3/4 success. Which I feel is not too bad considering it is a 541.3 mile route across Idaho's widest part. You are bound to find limitations.
-Try and go through some areas that are interesting to see. I did manage to hit some interesting areas. Most are divided by large areas that may not be too interesting. Just the nature of the beast of trying to get from one boarder to the other using mostly dirt. There are some long miles of nothing as well. Once I get a run through all this I will know more of where to camp and update the info as time moves on.
-Stay 100% in Idaho. This was achieved. After all it is the Idaho West/East Route.
-Try and keep the route as low as possible in elevation. I wanted to keep the entire route low in elevation in hopes that the route would be open for use during the spring and fall. This would leave the IDBDR available for the summer season since it would be too hot to be in the desert in the summer anyway. Most of the route is in the 5000-6000 foot range. there are two high points. One on the west side at 6228 feet and one on the east side at 7028 feet. I will have to do more research on these areas to see when they may be open for travel. Most of the interior could probably be used in the wintertime as well. If that is you thing.
-Stay as isolated as possible. As with using roads less often used, this would be considered different to each person. For most of the trip I believe you will feel pretty isolated. And again, once you get to the eastern part of the state that feeling may go away a bit. Depending on your idea of isolation.
The route will not be for the average overlander. I intend for it to be a bit of a challenge, in some areas, for driver and vehicle. The route will not be for AWD's or low clearance 4x4's. No Subaru is going to feel at home on portions of this route. A bit of clearance and a two-speed transfer case will be needed in areas. A big portion of the roads I chose on this route are not maintained by anyone.

I have come up with 4 legs to the route. Each leg being different in their own way. Each leg begins and ends with a resupply point for food and fuel.

-Leg 1 205.3 total miles. 7.33 paved
-Leg 2 89.4 total miles 4.09 paved
-Leg 3 160.0 total miles 10.67 paved
-Leg 4 86.6 total miles 13.17 paved

Well, I am running leg 1 of the route next month. It is the longest and most remote of the 4 legs. Next spring, I am planning on doing legs 2-4 to verify the route is doable. If all goes well, I will release the route to fellow overlanders to enjoy. I hope the SW Idaho Overlanding's West/East Idaho Overland Route will be a success for us all. George.
Well we finished up what we could of the West/East Route this last weekend. Everything was going good till we hit a private property sign 62 miles in. This is what happens when you get deep into these desert areas. At one time you could drive these roads, but with people not respecting the lands they travel in it starts to limit our access.

Usually I make reroute options in areas that are questionable, but not out here. Looking at the maps we had available I did not feel comfortable with the options presented so we decided to abort the rest of the trip. We were already stretching our fuel capabilities with this leg. Trying to find a reroute option would limited our fuel even more so we decided to find a camp spot for the night and head back home in the morning.

This morning I broke out the maps and started to see if there was other options available. Well, I found it was probably a good thing we did not try to reroute in the field. There really was no easy route available for us at that point. I did, however, found a route that should work. It is mostly BLM land and could be made all BLM land if were it cross private land is a problem with reroutes. Again when you get out into these areas it is a coin toss if you will have access to crossing private land. Sometimes the roads are public through fares and sometimes they are not. Hard to tell on just a map now-a-days.

At this point this reroute is really the only option. If for some reason it does not work out I will be forced to reroute closer to civilization and undoubtedly would add more pavement travel. I have only 3.4% left of pavement travel to meet my requirements. Getting more interesting as I dig deeper into this adventure.

This reroute added 6 miles to Leg 1's total miles. Bringing the distance to 211.4 between fuel/supplies distance.

Stay tuned for more updates. George.
 

GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
We made a quick check of the reroute around the private property we ran into previously a few weeks ago. It was a success! We also found some cool things along the way.

20231104_122955_HDR.jpg

20231104_141847.jpg



I have now driven about half of the Leg 1 Route. We are planning a trip out soon to finish scouting the rest of the Leg.

I have a couple of trips planned next year that will take in Leg 2 and leg 3. Leg 4 I don't think will need a prerun since it is on country roads and forest roads.

Stay tuned for more updates.
 
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GHCOE

Rank IV

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SW Idaho
We drove the last bit of Leg 1 to verify the route this weekend. It was a success! Leg 1 has now been successfully ran from beginning to end although not all at once, but that will wait till later this year.

Next trip out in April will be a route verification for half of Leg 2 and all of leg 3. Leg 4 will be ran this fall with 1, 2 and 3. Not too worried about leg 4 since it is maintained country and forest roads. It is the best I can do once I get to that side of the state, since there really is not too much two track roads I could link to. The roads are however dirt/gravel roads still.
 

GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
We did the Lava Roads II trip last weekend. This was a trip planned that would take in parts of Leg 2 and most of Leg 3 of the WEIOR. There were two locations on the route that were in question and this trip was supposed to sort out those areas as well as see the sights and road conditions.

The route was variable till we hit a water crossing that was running a little too fast and looked too deep as well. This area was in question already, so I had a bypass ready to go. The bypass would add about 3 miles of pavement. This would probably be only a seasonal reroute to leg 2 at most. I am really not sure if water flows through here this fast in the spring or not. I could see that there were workers working at a canal dam just upstream a bit. They may have been bypassing more water than normal to work on the dam.

20240426_141555.jpg


The bypass did add a cool old bridge though. This bridge was part of the old highway.

20240426_143629.jpg

After making the bypass it was smooth sailing for a while.

20240426_160623.jpg

We hit a snag at the end of Leg 2. A road that looked like it was passible was blocked by private property. Too bad because we can see our destination about a mile out. We had to do complete unexpected reroute on the fly. Luckily, we did not have to backtrack too far.

After fueling up we were back on track and headed to our planned camp spot for the night.

20240426_203009.jpg

Back on the trails before 9:30 the next morning we started to head back into the deep desert. I planned a bit different route with the Lava Roads II trip since I had already route verified this part of leg 3 of the WEIOR last year. This trip we headed more north for a time before reconnecting with the WEIOR Leg 3 route a few miles in.

We stopped for lunch at a place we camp often on our Mordor trips. Then it was time to start heading North.

20240427_131837_HDR.jpg

Lots of open desert for the next few miles. This was about the time I realized I was getting a bit burned out with driving. We had been on the trails for 5 hours and there was another 2 hours to go. So, I thought that I needed to add another night to the WEIOR route. Mostly because we were actually going to bypass a section that would add another 2 hours of driving to the day.

To make things worst is that about a half hour to our camp spot I broke a spring on my trailer. We spent about a 1 1/2 making a field fix to get me to camp. Just as we got the spring all sorted out a storm came rushing in.

20240427_182433.jpg

This made for a muddy mess for the rest of the day, but we did get a bit of sun just before it disappeared for the day.

20240427_193456_HDR.jpg

The next morning, we decided to head into the nearest town and try to fix the spring better for the trip home. The town was too far for a quick fix and return to finish the rest of the Route. That is unfortunate because again there are some critical route issues near the end of Leg 3. That I suppose will have to wait for another day.

20240428_080920_HDR.jpg

We drove till it was time to air up. Then it was into town. No one had the correct spring for a repair so we limped home on the field fix. Thanks for following! George.

20240428_091451_HDR.jpg


If you have been following along here with the creation of this route, I invite you to join my Patreon page Get more from SW Idaho Overlanding on Patreon .
 
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GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
Happy 4th!
Though I would throw up a teaser of some of the WEIOR Route to celebrate the holiday!

This trip/video series covers some of Leg 1 of the WEIOR (West East Idaho Overlanding Route) that I am building across Idaho. In this video all the roads we are driving are the official route as it stands now. More videos to follow so stay tuned, like and subscribe! George.

 

GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
This trip/video series covers some of Leg 1 of the WEIOR (West East Idaho Overlanding Route) that I am building across Idaho. In this video some of the roads we are driving are the official route as it stands now. More videos to follow so stay tuned, like and subscribe! George.

 

devildog80

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Apache Junction, AZ, USA
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Hello George, I made it :)
Looking forward to following you here, and nice to see more background on what it takes to head out on these treks. Not just a simple camping trip like it used to be....EH?
 
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GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
Hello George, I made it :)
Looking forward to following you here, and nice to see more background on what it takes to head out on these treks. Not just a simple camping trip like it used to be....EH?
You found the West East Idaho Overlanding Route (WEIOR) thread. This is where I post updates on the progress of this route. This is something I have been working on for a couple years now.

Go here SW Idaho Overlanding | OVERLAND BOUND COMMUNITY for more info, trip dates, videos and other stuff. Make sure to click the "WATCH" icon at the top right of the page to get notices when someone posts to the thread.

Glad you made it! George.
 

GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
Last episode of the Leg 1 trip. No roads in this episode cover the WEIOR but wanted to finish out the video series here. Thanks for watching!

 

GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
Leg 1 Reroute Confirmation
Being stopped by private property on our first trip out it was time to see if the reroute would be viable. Ride along with us as we take a day trip out into the high desert to determine the fate of this route. Good roads, bad roads and some cool things to see on along the way so stay tuned for adventure.

 

GHCOE

Rank IV

Pathfinder I

1,212
SW Idaho
Well, we did a full route verification trip last week. We were out for 8 days! Good times and the route was a success for the most part. I do have to reroute a bit on leg 3. Not where I had anticipated to reroute though, so it was some in field wandering that got us back on track. We had 12 vehicles that started with us, and we finished with 6. I had 4 other content creators join us for the trip. Some for a day and another for the whole trip. It will be some time before I get my videos up. But if you like you can check out the other channels to see their take on the route.

Softroadingthewest (Donald) was with us for day three of the trip.


DxD Overland (Mark Doiron) was a trooper and stayed with us the entire trip.


Backroad Exploration (Jared) Was with us the first 3 days of the trip. He does not currently have any videos of the trip up. Check out his channel he should have videos up soon.

@backroadexploration/videos

Sagebrushbob (Bob) was with us for the first 4 days. Not sure if he will be putting any video out of the trip or not. I did see him do some video work so check his channel out just in case.


I hope to get my videos put together and out late winter, early spring if all goes well. Till then enjoy these channels experiences on the route.