Seven Devils Campground is located about 17 miles outside Riggins, ID. While traveling on Hwy 95, you turn onto Seven Devils Road and begin going uphill. After traveling through some housing, you will pass over a cattle guard. The road is no longer paved after this, and I believe that it is now Forest Road 517. The road narrows the further up you get and there are some switchbacks. These tend to offer some great views of the surrounding mountains. For the most part, with care, any car with decent tires can get around this area. Potholes become more prominent, and deeper, as you get nearer Windy Saddle and the road has a pretty gnarly washout which would require careful navigation. Going to the trailhead at the end of the road would be my only concern for vehicles with low profile tires and clearances because this is the worst section of road. There are a lot of embedded rocks that jut out of the road as well as large loose rocks. I would not risk cutting a tire on a sports sedan or similar vehicle, but if you have tires with actual sidewalls, you are probably ok.

Windy Saddle Campground sits at the summit of the road. There are many options at this point depending on what your purpose is. Windy Saddle has some camping spots, a vault toilet, and some parking for day use. On the east side of the gap is a horse camp area, which offers 4 campsites and large spots for parking horse trailers. Traveling north will lead to the Boise #101 north trailhead, which also provides a trail up to the fire lookout. Driving west will drop you into the Seven Devils Campground, which is where I went. There are supposed to be ten campsites with two vault toilets, but I was only able to find nine campsites. All the sites had a decent place to set up a tent as well as a firepit. I could not find the table at one site, but it seemed that all the others had tables as well. Alternatively, you could hike down to the lake and find a nice spot to camp in close proximity to the water. You cannot camp right on the lake, but within 100 yards is pretty reasonable from what I saw.

There is a lot of hiking to be done in this area. The parking area for the Boise Trail North #101 has a vault toilet and a great view of Oregon. Hiking up to the working fire lookout gets you the best view for the least effort. At almost 8500 feet, the hike still requires some effort and it is a little steep, but it is also short. The lookout personnel were very friendly and invited me in for conversation and to sign their visitor register. From Windy Saddle, you can hike south on the Boise Trail #101 and visit some alpine lakes. There is a 26 mile loop that looks to start with trail #124 and then returns on trail #101. From either of these trails branch many other trails, with there being around 208 miles of trails accessible in the Idaho portion of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.

Unfortunately, the views this year were marred with the smoke of many wildfires. This did not change the fact that the views were still magnificent. The area was quiet and mostly empty the evening that I spent here. I will return again because it is just so beautiful. I believe the wildflowers bloom in late June to early July, which is when the road typically becomes passable to traffic as well. The season for this area tends to last until October when the snow starts flying. The road is not recommended for big trailers due to how steep it is, and travel is definitely not recommended once the ice and snow starts.I hope that you find the time to travel up there and see the world from the perspective that it offers.
For more information, visit the following website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/wallowa-whitman/recarea/?recid=51645

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