More Idaho: Volcanoes, Waterfalls, and the Oregon Trail

On our visit to Idaho, in addition to seeing the eclipse and hiking in the Sawtooth National Forest, we spent some time exploring some of the other natural sights in the state. Idaho is a huge, so we barely scratched the surface, but we saw as much as we could of the Southwest part of the state.

Arrowleaf flowers were all over the state.

A lot of our drive through Idaho looked about like this though.

A bee doing its thang.

On our way to Sawtooth National Forest, we stopped at the Shoshone Ice Cave. If you can't tell by their super awesome website, it's basically a tacky tourist attraction. But the cave itself is neat - a lava tube that has ice even in the height of summer. Worth a 20 minute stop if you happen to be in the area. Our tour guide was 18 years old, started every sentence with the word "well" and really had no idea why there was ice in the cave. So, plan ahead.

You walk on a suspended bridge over the ice.

David in the chilly (25F) cave.

Hiking back up out of the cave.

The historically accurate "caveman riding a dinosaur" statue outside the cave.

Ummm... yeah.

After spending a full day in the Sawtooth wilderness, we decided to take the scenic route to Boise to take in a few sites in southern and central Idaho. Our major stop was Craters of the Moon National Monument, formed from volcanic eruptions starting 15,000 years ago, with the most recent about 2,000 years ago. These same eruptions 2,000 years ago formed the lava tubes at the Shoshone Ice Cave.

It's backlit, the air was hazy from wildfires, and there was nobody there to take the picture for us... but here's proof we visited!

Lava Lake, on the edge of the Craters of the Moon.

Formations on the Devil's Orchard trail.

Climbing up to the top of Inferno Cone (6,181 feet).

Almost there!

Hazy views from the top of Inferno Cone.

It normally would be a great view, but visibility was poor due to wildfire smoke and dusty air.

A lonely tree at the top of Inferno Cone.

Look, it's Paul on a log!

Walking across the crunchy lava rocks.

Neat old lava flows.

The North Crater Trail.

Peering down into one of the big craters.

The trail meandered across old lava fields.

The contrast between different types of rock was interesting.

After finishing up at Craters of the Moon, we headed down to Twin Falls to grab lunch and check out Shoshone Falls, The Niagara of the West. The falls are a large drop-off of the Snake River in a deep gorge. The flow was pretty low this time of year but the falls were still pretty impressive (earlier this year it looked like this). The city of Twin Falls wasn't anything special. Boise is clearly Idaho's town with the most going on.

The Snake River from an overlook in Twin Falls.

The main part of Shoshone Falls.

During high flow it's one big waterfall.

The Snake River Canyon.

Closer to Boise, we stopped by the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. It's named after an extinct North American horse species. You can't actually access the area where many of the fossils were found, but we went to the small visitor's center in downtown Hagerman and then hiked a bit of the Emigrant Trail. The original route of the Oregon Trail passed through this area, and we saw some traces of it.

The famous Oregon Trail ("Paul has died of dysentery")

These are traces of the original wagon ruts of the Oregon Trail.

It was a stark but oddly beautiful landscape.

Hiking the emigrant trail. It was hot and dry.

The trail was swarming with black ground wasps and grasshoppers.

We saw a couple of these guys along the trail. Probably a long-nosed leopard lizard.

This one was molting.

A BEAUTIFUL mural in the tiny town of Hammett.