BOISE, Idaho — The Boise National Forest closed Grimes Creek in September of 2020 for a year. People were trashing this area, but it hasn't gotten any better since it re-opened.
This weekend volunteers with an off-road club traveled out to Grimes Creek to clean up campsites and they even removed an abandoned gooseneck trailer.
"There is a rule out there that you pack it in you pack it out, a lot of people are not understanding that" said Don Carlisle, who created 4LO Idaho Off-Road six years ago on Facebook. "Idaho is a beautiful state we want to keep it as beautiful as we can."
Billy Geib owns Boise Off-Road, he used his towing expertise with the help of the group to haul out the trailer after the group got authorization from the Boise National Forest.
"It is super annoying, we don’t really care for the people leaving their garbage everywhere," said Geib, who turned his passion into a full-time job in 2016. "It does make you feel a lot better to get this out of here, maybe this will be one less area they decide to close down."
Grimes Creek provides one of the closest dispersed camping options close to the Treasure Valley, but that proximity comes with a price. The forest service shut it down because of sanitation issues, geological damage and other problems.
"They are planning on shutting it down if we don’t keep these campsites and Mother Nature the way she is," said Carlisle. "So I encourage everybody to clean your mess up, it’s huge, it’s important."
4Lo Idaho Off-Road had a few dozen volunteers come out to pick up garbage and clean up broken class. They continued up Grimes Creek in their supped up rigs removing trash left behind by other people.
"I come up to Grimes Creek two or three times a year just to enjoy the scenery," said Carlisle. "Over the course of five to ten years it has changed drastically with a lot of garbage along the road and the campsites not being picked up."
This group will also come up to Grimes Creek in September for their annual event called Wheeling for the Struggle. They will go for a ride and camp out to connect and raise awareness for suicide prevention.
It's called Casey's Smile and it came to be after Don's son Casey, a former marine took his own life in 2018, the event happens the weekend of September 15.
"We encourage anybody to come up and camp with us," said Carlisle. "Saturday night we feed everybody and this year we will have a gentleman that will come play some music around our campfire and then we got a couple of other things that are in store."
