The Davis Lodge at Loafer Creek Falls

Just below the Clifton Basin Trailhead in southeastern Idaho is a 711± acre cattle and horse grazing recreational ranch that borders the Caribou National Forest on three sides. Located in Idaho’s Big Game Unit 73, this Bannock Zone unit consistently produces record book mule deer and offers multiple controlled any-weapon elk hunts along with late muzzleloader seasons for antlered and antlerless elk. For a hunter who knows what to look for in southeast Idaho, this ranch stands out.

Access comes in from Clifton Creek Road, a county-maintained road open from spring through fall. The sellers have kept the two private routes into the cabin bladed and maintained each year, making the approach easy and drivable. Cliffed-out rock faces rise above, dense deciduous cover fills the draws below, and Loafer Creek carves its way down through the whole place.

The creek is the property’s signature feature. Born from springs near 7,000 feet, it levels through the upper reach before cutting a steep, rocky cascade down past the cabin at 5,600± feet and continuing out the draw. In good snow years, a seasonal waterfall spills from south-facing rock ledges of the peak above. Water drives the habitat, and the habitat drives the wildlife. Mule deer hold in dense cover, elk move through on migration, and multiple surrounding spring-fed drainages keep water on the ground through summer.

The Davis Lodge is a fully refinished, off-grid four-bedroom, two-bath cabin with a wide-open common space on the main level and a big fireplace. It sleeps twelve. A 75-head summer grazing operation runs across seven pastures from welded pipe corrals just off the county road. Twenty-three miles down the road, Downata Hot Springs is an easy day out with the kids, and Clifton’s Papa Jay’s has been smoking hickory beef jerky on the same Main Street corner since 1996.