Land of the Yankee Fork State Park
Industrial Heritage · Challis, Idaho
A history park two miles south of Challis that exists to explain the mining country behind it - five hundred and twenty-one acres created in 1990 around an interpretive centre, and then a scatter of ghost towns and workings up the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River that the centre sends you out to find. Bayhorse, Bonanza and Custer are the three, all of them left standing rather than reconstructed, and a gold dredge sits in the creek bed where it stopped working. Idaho Parks runs it in cooperation with the Forest Service, and Challis Hot Springs joined the park in 2022.
Highway 93, Challis, Idaho, 83226, United States
Open year round in principle, but ⚠ THE SEASON DECIDES WHAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE. The interpretive centre two miles south of Challis keeps SEASONAL HOURS and the Yankee Fork gold dredge tours run only in the warmer months. ⚠ THE UNPAVED ROADS TO BAYHORSE, BONANZA AND CUSTER ARE NOT PLOUGHED AND ARE CLOSED BY SNOW FROM ROUGHLY OCTOBER TO MAY - the centre can be open while everything it interprets is unreachable, so ring before travelling out of season and ask which roads are passable. An Idaho state park entry arrangement applies; the ghost towns themselves are generally free to walk. CHALLIS HOT SPRINGS became part of the park in 2022 and takes its own bookings. Mobile coverage is poor to absent up the Yankee Fork; fuel up in Challis.
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