Swim and Play at the Lake

Payette Lake is the big draw for McCall, so playing at the lake should be at the top of your activity list if your toddler(s) enjoys sand and water. It’s a really sandy lake with lots of beaches to choose from and a nice shallow entry at all of them making it an ideal place for toddlers to play and swim. We visited four different beaches downtown:

Rotary Park - This was my favorite beach area due to all the shade and picnic tables by the water and container with lender sand toys! Our kiddos also loved playing around the line of rocks along the shore and if you have older kids who can swim well, there was a floating dock offshore you can swim to and jump off of. When the kids get tired of the sand and water, you can play at a little playground at the end of the beach. A very nice bathroom with a bench and hooks for changing wet clothes completed the set up.
Art Roberts Park - This small park right on the main street downtown has a decent little beach and a lot of nice grass. There’s a bathroom too. If you’re looking for a quiet place to play, this beach is a good bet as we never saw anyone there during our stay as the bigger beaches are more popular.
Legacy Park - As main street turns the corner you come to Legacy Park, which features two large beach areas on either side of some docks and a big bathroom complex. This beach also had a container of lender sand toys and there was a sand volleyball court and small splash pad (not on yet when we visited in June). The views of the marina are lovely too. The downside for us was lack of shade and there’s also no picnic tables. Regardless, this was the busiest beach during our visit.
Brown Park - A few minutes walk beyond Legacy Park gets you to Brown Park, which had our other favorite beach and play area. Brown Park recently underwent a renovation and now boasts a beautiful playground with really fun and interesting play equipment, lots of shade, grass, picnic tables, bathroom, and a nice little beach with a water feature in the sand for additional water play. It wasn’t turned on yet when we visited in June, but I know our toddlers would have loved it.

*Box of lender beach toys at Rotary Park*

*Nice sand on all the Payette Lake beaches*

*The entry was quite gradual at the beaches we visited so there was good shallow water for our kiddos to play in*

*Art Roberts Park - not much there aside from grass, dock, and a beach, but it was quiet whenever we walked by*

*The beach at Brown Park. The yellow stuff in the water is just pollen :)*

Get Some Ice Cream

What’s better than ice cream after a day of sun, sand, and water? There are quite a few choices in McCall, but we went to the famous Ice Cream Alley - a shop on main street that’s been serving up ice cream for almost 40 years proudly serving “mountain sized scoops”. Their ice cream is made fresh at the shop in a huge variety of flavors and they’re apparently known for their big scoops. We got small scoops in a few different flavors and while they weren’t cheap (what is in a tourist town?) they were at least closer to medium sized scoops at most shops. The flavors were wonderful and we especially loved the orange creamsicle and peanut butter chocolate.

Play at a Playground

We visited two lakeside playground during our time in McCall. One is in Rotary Park and is pretty small, but it’s basically on the beach which is fun. The other playground in Brown Park is new and quite large with some really fun play equipment like a super long slide, a log and rope climbing structure, and an almost sculptural element where washers slide down ridged poles making a really cool tinkling rain sound. If you only have the time to visit one playground, we’d recommend the one in Brown Park.

*As you can see, the playground at Brown Park is quite a bit larger*

*Lots of climbing structures in Brown Park*

Walk Around Downtown

Downtown is is pretty small, but that makes it walkable with little ones and our kiddos had fun walking around looking at all the cool adventure vehicles and campers and stuff in shop windows. The Barn Owl Books & Gifts was our favorite with their cool kids books, stuffed animals, and unique games. Don’t forget to stop and play at the bear sculpture above Art Roberts park that if nothing else makes for a cute photo opportunity :)

*Our kiddos had fun playing around on the bear sculpture downtown*

Visit the Pump Track at Bear Basin

Our accidental discovery of the pump track at Bear Basin was the highlight of our trip. We were so glad we’d thrown in Jasper’s bike! We arrived in McCall earlier than our check-in time for our lodging, so decided to stop at Bear Basin and do some hiking as it’s just minutes from town with free parking at the enormous Bear Basin Trailhead. We went to look at the trail map at the end of the parking lot and immediately saw a sign pointing us down the Baby Bear trail to the pump track. The walk was just a couple of minutes and the trail is easy enough that Jasper (age 3) could ride his bike the whole way. The track itself is basically a mountain biking practice area for little ones complete with varied terrain like tiny hills and sharp corners and a picnic table so you can sit and watch. So awesome! Jasper was obsessed with riding on this track and even though we didn’t have a bike for Freya, she loved just running around on the track. We visited twice during our stay we had so much fun.

*Heading down the baby bear trail to the pump track*

*Getting ready to cruise the track. The picnic table was a nice bonus!*

Take a Hike or Go Mountain Biking

While you’re at Bear Basin, take a little hike! The trails are wonderfully maintained with plenty of ones easy enough for toddlers. We continued past the pump track on Baby Bear for a super easy yet very beautiful one mile hike complete with huge patches of gorgeous wildflowers (we were there end of June). While parking at Bear Basin Trailhead is free, they did have a sign saying they accepted donations for tail maintenance, although it wasn’t clear how they wanted that done. When we returned the next day to ride the pump track again, Justin when for a nice 5 mile trail run and said it was beautiful and really fun, plus we saw tons of people out mountain biking, so a good place for mom and dad to recreate too. If your family is into mountain biking this would be a great place to ride together.