Huckleberry Festival

Each August the booths go up outdoors along Highway 55 in the City of Donnelly, about 15 minutes from McCall and 2 hours from Boise by the Chamber’s reckoning. They carry food, arts and crafts, and, under the vendor rules, “all types of merchandise (within reason).” There are huckleberry treats to sample, kids’ games and live music through the weekend. The Greater Donnelly Area Chamber of Commerce runs the festival in honor of “the wild berry that dots our surrounding hillsides,” and it asks visitors to dress for it: “We are a little obsessed with the color purple! Get ready to raid your closet.”

The 2026 festival ran August 14, 15 and 16. Vendors opened at noon on Friday and stayed until six. On Saturday they kept nine to six, and on Sunday nine to two. That Friday evening the Donnelly Public Library held a porch party from six to seven, the first of the week’s events in the library’s calendar.

Saturday on Main Street

Saturday, August 15, 2026, opened wet. The Chamber posted that morning: “It may be a little rainy today but that won’t stop the festivities!” Travelers had been told the day before to check 511.idaho.gov for road closures.

The parade stepped off at noon on Main Street. Entries gather at Donnelly Elementary School at 11 a.m. They include classic cars and car clubs, marching bands, spirit squads, balloons, walking units, floats, and specialty vehicles carrying advertising. Riders come too, under a rule that bars stallions and horses under the age of five. In the evening the music moved to Donnelly City Park for the Concert in the Park, six to eight.

The Huck Trot and the heart

Saturday begins earlier, at the library at 150 E. State Street. Check-in opens at 8 a.m., and the race whistle blows at nine for the Huckleberry Trot, a 5K fun run and walk that its organizers often spell “Hück Trot.” The course runs out to Historic Roseberry and back to the library. The 2026 race was billed as the 17th annual. The first 200 registrants receive a tee-shirt and a goody bag, and awards go to the first finisher in each age bracket. All proceeds go to the Friends of Donnelly Library in memory of Kerri Ann Hawkins and Jürgen Hawkins.

The turnaround is marked by a heart. The Payette Land Trust makes it each year as part of its own fundraising and runs the water station at Roseberry, where runners circle the heart to round the halfway point. Before the race the heart stands at the library, and the porch party is the occasion to see it before it moves out to Roseberry. In August 2026 the library wrote, “This heart has become an important part of Hück Trot.”

Raffle tickets for the library’s baskets are sold on race day. The library’s posts that week urged townspeople to “come volunteer, come hang out, come be part of your community.”

Pancakes, a picnic and a drawing

On Sunday, August 16, 2026, the Huckleberry Pancake Breakfast was served from eight to eleven at the Community Center. The Pioneer Picnic followed at 1 p.m. at Roseberry, and at 3 p.m. the library drew the raffle baskets. Winners did not have to be present. By evening the Chamber had posted its farewell: “Thank you to everyone who attended the Huckleberry Festival! We will see you next year. Travel safe!”

A beginning no one has fixed

The Chamber says only that the festival has run “for years.” In August 2023 the McCall Star-News, in a piece by Kurt Johnson and Max Silverson, put it this way: “No one seems to really know for sure when Donnelly began celebrating the Huckleberry Festival.” The Huck Trot is the one part of the weekend that keeps a count.

The Chamber lists the 2027 festival for August 13, 14 and 15, with the parade on Saturday, August 14. The race’s registration page lists the Huckleberry Trot for August 21, 2027.