Winter in Fairfield: Let's Snowkite!

Snowkiting, for myself, was recently limited to frozen lakes and farmers’ fields. But along came an opportunity to road trip it down to Idaho for a weekend of snowkiting in terrain that I’ve dreamt of for the past three years. I always imagined the day I would be kiting never ending rolling, snow-covered hills, and I finally got my chance!

Up until a week before the trip, I couldn’t of imagined taking a road trip from Edmonton to Idaho to kite for a few days. Some of the local kiters suggested we join them on the trip and attend the Soldier Mountain kite festival, so without much planning, we headed down!

Kiting around the Fairfield and surrounding area is excellent. There are several places to choose from depending on the wind direction for the day. Some of the main spots include:

- Last Chance: head West on highway 20 from Fairfield for 27.4 miles (44KM) and you’ll see a small turn-out along the north side of the road to park. If the parking is full, there is turn-out just a bit further down the road along the north side of the road as well. From Fairfield, it will take about 30 minutes of driving roughly (no signage). We had a great day of kiting here during a strong West wind – I think it would work well for an East wind as well. There are tons of hills to jump off and the terrain is awesome. Launch is good and the area can accommodate more kiters than I could ever imagine. According to the locals, Last Chance is usually the best place to go kiting if the winds are forecasted to be lighter on a given day. And on a small side note, camping in these turn-outs is not appreciated by the local law enforcement – they may or may not kick you out of there at 4am.

- Snowmobile Parking Lot: head West on highway 20 from Fairfield for 20.9 miles (33KM) and there will be a turn off to the right that will take you to a very large parking lot. The drive takes about 20 minutes roughly. Look for a snowmobile sign. The launch is easy and again, the area can accommodate lots of kiters. The area would work well for either a West or East wind. The terrain is great and many hills to jump off.

- Road 46: head East on Highway 20 and turn right at ID-46 and head roughly 20 miles (32KM) south. We never had a chance to kite around this area, so I don’t know where exactly to go, but supposedly, there is a place to kite around here.

Knowing some locals will definitely make your trip that much better when kiting in this area. When we arrived, we stopped by one of the local restaurants for breakfast (Soldier Creek Brewing Company) and met some fellow kiters. As a general rule obviously, if you are cool and respectful, you’ll get some help. The locals here were great and very eager to help make the most of our kite trip. Our other friends who flew down organized a guided tour of the area with a local kiter, Brad. Our friends thought very highly of his services. You can check his site by clicking here! We only knew about the spots above, but Brad will know of some other awesome spots.

On a side note, thanks Randy for the ride down on the bus. It was awesome! That’s Randy in picture 3 and his bus in 14.

If you have any other questions about kiting in this area, please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer!

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