Description

Location Overview
High Valley Swanson sits about 18 miles southwest of Cascade, Idaho, in Valley County. The field is small, covering only about 7 acres, and is privately owned for private use. It rests at a surveyed elevation of 4,883 feet, tucked into the mountainous "high valley" country north of Boise that gives the strip its name, in the broader Payette National Forest and central Idaho backcountry region.

Camping & Recreation
The airstrip is the centerpiece of a small fly-in residential airpark community rather than a public backcountry destination. It's described as a fly-in community north of Boise that blends natural beauty with aviation-friendly amenities. Because it's privately owned and for private use, formal camping infrastructure like outhouses, fire rings, and tie-downs isn't documented the way it is at public U.S. Forest Service strips like Johnson Creek or Chamberlain Basin. Recreation here is really about the setting itself: high-mountain meadow scenery, seclusion, and proximity to Idaho's vast network of backcountry strips for day trips.

Notes & Warnings
Pilots should treat this as a serious backcountry operation, not a casual stop. There is a single runway with a grass and turf-dirt surface, listed at roughly 2,300 feet long and 50 feet wide, sometimes described as a 708-meter grass strip. A caution exists for trees and a bird hazard on Runway 18/36, specifically affecting Runway 18. The monitor frequency for backcountry traffic is 122.9. There is no control tower and no NOTAM service, and the field is inspected only under the FAA's owner/5010-2 private-use mail-out program, meaning conditions can change without formal notice, so checking in with the owner or seeking recent pilot reports before arrival is wise. The airport falls under Salt Lake City ARTCC's airspace and is charted on the Salt Lake City sectional, with clearance-delivery contact routed through Salt Lake ARTCC. Because it's private-use, landing requires prior permission from the owner, unlike Idaho's public backcountry strips, which are open to transient pilots. As with most high-elevation Idaho strips, expect significant density-altitude effects in summer, so morning departures are favored, and solid mountain and backcountry flying proficiency is a must.

History
Public FAA records show the airport was activated on November 1, 1981, making it a product of the wave of private backcountry and residential airstrips that sprang up across central Idaho in the late 20th century as pilots sought direct access to the region's mountains and wilderness. Unlike the storied U.S. Forest Service strips of the Frank Church Wilderness, such as Johnson Creek, Chamberlain Basin, and Sulphur Creek, High Valley Swanson developed as a private fly-in airpark: land purchased and platted specifically so residents could keep aircraft at their homes and use the runway as a private gateway into Idaho's backcountry flying scene, following a real-estate model common to airparks nationwide where lots are sold around a shared runway that's owned and maintained by the residents themselves rather than a government agency.

If you're researching this as a destination to fly into, I'd treat the private and no-NOTAM status as the most important detail, worth confirming directly before planning a trip, along with current owner-permission requirements and runway condition.