Viewing the Northern Lights in Idaho
Overnight last Friday, May 10 into Saturday, May 11, those of us in Idaho were the lucky recipients of the Aurora Borealis (also known as the Northern Lights) thanks to the G5 geomagnetic storm! We haven’t had a space weather storm like that in over 20 years, and it was my first time seeing the lights with my own eyeballs aside from our overnight flight from JFK to Frankfurt last fall.
It blew me away how many people were able to capture the lights from all over the country, including as far south as Florida. Seeing all of the photos on social media warmed my heart, and seeing those photos and the lights in person gave me the same feeling as seeing the total solar eclipse just last month. I needed to document that night, and luckily I have a website where I can do just that. 😉
I picked out 16 of my favorite photos (out of dozens!) I took of the aurora with my phone (not one of these photos was color-edited by me; the iPhone may have done some post-processing on the backend, though) and shared our night, the websites we checked leading up to the event, photography tips, and some of the best places to go to potentially see the Northern Lights here in Idaho in the future!
Viewing the Northern Lights in Idaho
I started seeing people talking on social media about the potential for a strong geomagnetic storm a couple of days before Friday. I honestly didn’t think too much of it because we haven’t had amazing views of the Northern Lights in the past. (Korri and I went out to see them a few months ago during another strong storm and could barely make them out in the sky. The color was so faint on my phone!) In general, Boise is too far south and has too much light pollution to get a great view of the aurora.
On Friday, May 10, pretty much EVERYONE was excited about the Northern Lights. I was still skeptical, but I was willing to go wherever Korri wanted to go, and I’m a night owl so staying up late wasn’t going to be a problem. Once I started seeing the photos rolling in from Europe and then the East Coast, I started to get excited. My fingers were crossed for a good show here. Like with any aurora, it could disappear at any moment. We really didn’t know when exactly it would hit here and if the timing would be right (once it was dark outside).
The sun set in Boise at around 9 pm, but it didn’t get fully dark until almost 10 pm. Korri decided we’d make the approximately 45 minute drive to Bogus Basin (from downtown), and we were on the road to Bogus before it got fully dark. Bogus Basin is a local mountain resort north of Boise that offers winter sports (alpine and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, tubing) as well as summer activities (including a mountain coaster). Right now, they aren’t open for anything, but there is some snow lingering on the mountain.
Northern Lights from Bogus Basin, Idaho
We picked up my dad and then we were on our way to Bogus! Slowly at first, because we got caught in graduation and construction traffic downtown, lol. There were a bunch of other cars making the same drive to Bogus, but a number of folks pulled off on the various overlooks and pullouts on the way up. I had never seen so many people on that road at once.
The plan was to go as far up and away from the city lights as possible, so we drove all the way to the parking lot by Pioneer Lodge, the highest lodge at Bogus. There weren’t as many people up there as I thought there would be, but it was definitely not quiet for 11 pm on a Friday night.
My dad only brought a sweatshirt with him (it was below 50°F outside) and sacrificed what little warmth it would have provided by throwing it over the light shining from Pioneer Lodge so our eyes could adjust to the dark and so our photos and videos turned out. It worked perfectly! 😆 (The first photo shows the lodge with a diffused blue light on the outside; it was blue because of the sweatshirt, ha.)
The Northern Lights appeared like a slight haze in the sky when we got there, almost like clouds. The show really got going at around 11:50 pm; the pillars started appearing, and the colors became more obvious. (I unfortunately saw so many people stop by between 11 and 11:30, look for a couple of minutes, and then leave when they couldn’t see anything.)
The colors were NOT as bright to the naked eye as they appear in photos, but at its most active, you could faintly make out the colors and watch the lights pulse and dance around us. They were RIGHT over head at one point. I couldn’t believe was I was seeing! (My Instagram reel shows how the aurora looked to the eyes versus in photos.)
The sweetest part was listening to the older kids/younger adults around us when they spotted the aurora. It just made my heart swell hearing them go “WHOA! IS THAT IT??? OMG!” because like…same! It was an awe-inspiring, surreal moment that we were all sharing collectively, not unlike experiencing the total solar eclipse.
Just after 12:30 am, my dad grabbed his sweatshirt and we moved to a darker location just slightly down the road. The second spot overlooked the city, so I snapped a photo with the aurora over Boise! The show continued until after 1 am, when we left the mountain. It was hard to leave but it had died down quite a bit by then. We even snapped a couple of photos of the aurora FROM town!
We actually drove up to Bogus again on Saturday night because the aurora made an appearance again in the city at around 10:30 pm, but it was short-lived; we got back to our dark spot and it was all over by then. 🥲 I’m really glad we caught them on Friday night. There were even MORE people driving up to Bogus on Saturday night and unfortunately most of them missed it!
Aurora Photography Tips
As they say, the best camera is the one you have in your hand. The smart phones most of us carry these days are perfectly capable of photographing the Aurora Borealis, and they do very well! I took all of these photos with my iPhone 14 in night mode (3 second shutter speed, though you can make it up to 10 seconds; you just have to hold your phone very still or use a tripod for best results). The colors were not this vibrant to my eyes, but you could still see them slightly. I made no edits to these photos!
Korri brought his fancy new Panasonic camera to photograph the aurora, and he also took some photos with the very old Nikon that shot hundreds of thousands of my blog photos over the years (it’s still kicking!).
If you want to photograph the aurora with a DSLR, be sure to use a lens that is 15-25mm for best results. (35mm works too but you’ll get less of the sky with a f1.8 rating.)
On your camera, set the ISO to 800, increase the aperture to f1.8, and do 2-4 second exposure. Focus the camera on a nearby light or city lights, then change the focus to manual.
Put your camera on a tripod and start taking pictures. You can also set the camera to take pictures every couple of seconds to stitch together a time lapse later. To prevent camera shake, you can use the timer or a remote.
Where to See the Northern Lights in Idaho
The best place to see the Northern Lights in Idaho is in the higher elevations of north Idaho. The farther north and away from city lights you are, the better! Schweitzer Mountain Resort just outside of Sandpoint is one of the best spots to see the aurora when it makes an appearance this far south. (Of course, it still needs to be a relatively strong geomagnetic storm to get the aurora into the lower 48!)
If you are in south Idaho, the same tip applies: if you can, get up into the mountains away from any city lights. The Stanley or Sun Valley areas would be perfect. If you are in Idaho Falls, head towards Island Park or the Tetons. In the Pocatello area, drive in the highlands southeast of town. In the Twin Falls area, Mount Harrison could be a good spot, or drive north towards the Camas Prairie.
If you are in Boise or the other cities in the Treasure Valley, there are a few spots I recommend, or you can go well outside of the valley in the mountains for an even better shot at seeing the aurora. You want somewhere that is dark when you look to the north, so try to limit as many city lights in front of your view as possible. Here are some options:
Bogus Basin
Blacks Creek/Bonneville Point
Lucky Peak (the top of the hill or the reservoir)
Horseshoe Bend
Sehewoki'l Newenee'an Katete (formerly Squaw Butte) near Emmett
No matter where you end up, be sure to TURN OFF YOUR HEADLIGHTS, especially if they are pointing in the direction of people trying to see and/or photograph the aurora! Unaware people leaving their lights on and pointed towards us was the most annoying part of our viewing experience.
I look at my photos and videos now and honestly can’t believe I actually saw the aurora in real life. It actually happened. In SOUTH IDAHO! It feels like a dream! I’m grateful that Korri was on top of it and that we hung out long enough to see the aurora come to life. It was an experience I won’t soon forget!
Were you one of the lucky ones to see the Northern Lights during the same geomagnetic storm? Where were you located? Now I really want to plan a trip to Alaska and/or the Nordic countries to see the more vibrant aurora colors in real life!