My First Trip to Lake Cascade

I just got back from my first trip to Lake Cascade! I had no idea we had such a beautiful lake! Check out these pictures and here's a few things I'd do differently next time.

First off, the drive along the Payette River is breathtakingly gorgeous! As I watched the rafters and kayakers I dreamed of being an adventurer someday. It looked so fun!

As we entered the city of Cascade I was pleasantly surprised to find hotels, restaurants, and cute little shops. We planned on roughing it in a tent, but I thought next time around I want to look into one of these quaint little hotels or cabins!

We kept driving through because although we saw the lake off to our left, we had no idea how to get there! We ended up going a good 30 minutes North of where we needed to turn off and ended up at the North end of Lake Cascade near Donnelly. I later found out that there are some amazing hot springs in Donnelly that I can't wait to try out next time called Gold Fork Hot Springs.

We ended up turning around and setting up camp at Van Wyck. If I had to sleep in a tent, this was my kind of camping! We put the tent right on the grass, the beach was right next to camp, and we were just a couple minutes from town.

My kids loved fishing (even though they didn't catch a thing!) and they had so much fun playing on the beach, rafting, swimming, making food around the campfire, and playing cards.

If you haven't been to Lake Cascade you are missing out! You could even make a quick day trip out of it and now that I've ventured out of the Treasure Valley, I can't wait to discover even more of this beautiful state!