Things To Do In Boise

After more than 20 years in business, what began with one aircraft shepherding fishers through the Idaho backcountry has blossomed into a gleaming six-Cessna fleet offering charter service deep into the wilderness. Overseeing the whole operation is SP Aircraft’s founder, Scott Patrick, a charter-industry veteran with many close contacts in the backcountry-outfitter, river-guide, and tour-company arena. The outfit’s trip packages dispense wild majesty and creature comforts in equal measure, much like receiving a foot massage from a grizzly bear. The Sawtooth Air Tour and Backcountry Brunch, for example, begins with a 90-minute flight over the Sawtooth Range, Dagger Falls, and the Deadwood Reservoir and culminates in a multicourse brunch. Meanwhile, the Mackay Bar Overnight Steelhead Fishing on the Main Salmon River trip invites travelers to try their luck on the “River of No Return”—so-called because, unlike most rivers, it only flows one way.

With a five-star rating as an instructor-development center from the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), Dive Magic’s aquanauts impart scuba prowess to aspiring underwater explorers. During a two-hour Discover Scuba session (a $50 value), fledgling flipper-kickers are introduced to the essential elements of scuba safety, equipment usage, and how to gurgle "gesundheit!" after a subaquatic sneeze, then descend into the depths of an on-site heated swimming pool. While basking in the buoyancy, a Dive Magic staff photographer will snap a photographic keepsake (a $10 value) to memorialize the immersed moment. To make the experience as comfortable as possible, Dive Magic offers a choice between male or female instructors. All equipment is provided.

A competitive shooter since he was a teenager, Mike Wirth began teaching responsible firearms operations during college. Between bouts of studying for his degree in mechanical engineering, he showed friends and classmates the firearms basics, such as marksmanship fundamentals, proper cleaning and storage, and how to smelt each bullet by hand.

Now teamed with business partner Aaron Goodfellow, Wirth continues training clients in responsible armed defense. On the outdoor ranges shared with Parma Rod and Gun Club, he and Goodfellow lead classes focused on handgun operations, teaching guests skills from swapping magazines to courteous behaviors when on the range.

Boise Nationals Soccer Club helps develop young soccer players from their first step onto the pitch to their first step onto a college campus. Formed exclusively for boys in 1986, the club has since merged with several girls' affiliates to create one of the state's most formidable coed soccer outfits. Today, 30 competitive teams play beneath its star-emblazoned logo.

The club's programs split player development into six categories, and its youth soccer league—formed in 2008—places pint-size dribblers under the guidance of professional coaches, who provide more in-depth instruction than the volunteer parents or scarecrows that supervise many other recreational sports teams. For players who blossom under the club's stewardship, college-placement programs are available to help hoist games to the next level.

Hoisting championship trophies and high-stakes competition comes second nature to the Idaho Steelheads. Since joining the ECHL in 2003, the team has qualified for the playoffs every season, and in 2004 and 2007, the team conquered all opponents to take the ECHL Kelly Cup, the league's most prestigious cup other than that coffee mug Wayne Gretzky once touched. An affiliate of the NHL Dallas Stars, their players take to the ice at CenturyLink Arena, where fans routinely fill sections to cheer their team on against Western Conference foes.

Originally known as the Clemmer Theatre, the Bing Crosby Theater was opened in 1915, riding the first wave of movie palaces. A unique acoustic shell with thousands of lights hang over the stage, complementing the auditorium's atmosphere of old-timey elegance and Illuminating the night sky for attendees who flew in on their old-timey blimps.