Monday, July 28, 2025

Thousand Springs State Park/Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument

 After our paddle to Blue Heart Springs, Noelle, Sierra and I set out to explore Thousand Springs and Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument. Our first stop was the visitor center in the small town of Hagerman. After we had explored the visitor center, we set out to visit our first of the several units of Thousand Springs State Park: Malad Gorge.

Located just off of Interstate 84, Malad Gorge is an interesting place where the Malad River flows through a narrow canyon and down to the Sanke River. We parked the car in the lot there and set off on the short, paved nature trail.


A pedestrian bridge passes over the river and offers great views both upstream and downstream.



Perhaps the most stunning feature of the park is the waterfall known as Devil's Washbowl.


After exploring Malad Gorge for a short time, we headed back into Hagerman for lunch at a pizza place called Papa Kelsey's. I would not recommend. They somehow lost our order and so our lunch took way longer than anticipated. Because of the delay we were unable to get to parts of Thousand Springs State Park before they closed. 

After lunch we headed out to Hagerman Fossil Beds. I have to admit the fossil beds are a bit of a disappointment. Known for fossils of mammals including the Hagerman Horse, you just can't get close to the actual fossil beds. We visited the two overlooks in the monument. The Snake River Overlook has some nice views of the Snake River, but powerlines mar the view.


The other overlook allows views of a section of the Oregon Trail that traversed a steep hill. Again, a nice view but powerlines distract from giving the visitor a better idea of what the scene was like during the emigration.


There is a section of Oregon Trail that you can hike, but it was too hot to hike during our visit. Instead we moved on to our next stop: Ritter Island.

Ritter Island was closed by the time we arrived. However, we were able to make the short walk over to Lemmon Falls.



Our last stop for the day was Niagara Springs. We drove out to the Crystal Lake and enjoyed the view.



Before leaving we stopped at Niagara Springs, where water pours out of the hillside.


While I had intended to visit Box Canyon and hike down into the canyon, it was just too hot and so we opted to return to Twin Falls instead. 

Blue Heart Springs

This morning, Noelle, Sierra and I headed west to Banbury Hot Springs where we rented a tandem and solo kayak from Banbury Adventures for the short paddle to one of the most visually interesting places in southern Idaho: Blue Heart Springs. 

We put in on the water at their nice docks on the Snake River and started paddling downstream towards our destination.





Along the way we paddled past the spot where the water from Box Canyon flows into the Snake River.



Wildlife spotted along the way included white pelicans, bald eagles,


and great blue herons.


After a short paddle, we made our way into the entrance to Blue Heart Springs.


We paddled around the springs a bit, admiring the crystal clear, blue water.


I got out of the kayak for a bit and climbed up the talus slope to get a view of the spring from above.



Eventually I worked up the guts to jump in the 58 degree water for a swim.




After enjoying the spring for about a half hour, we started back to Banbury Hot Springs on the Snake River.




It was a very enjoyable paddle and a great way to spend a hot, summer morning. 

Twin Falls, Idaho

We've used Twin Falls, Idaho as our base for exploring the area for the past two days, but now it's time to move on. There are some parts of Twin Falls that I've really enjoyed, including all the nice outdoors attractions and waterfalls. Amongst them:

Shoshone Falls

Perrine Coulee Falls


The Snake River and the deep canyon it cuts through the earth on the north side of the city are also very interesting. There's a paved trail that follows the rim and some other trails that wind their way within the canyon.

 From many areas of the rim, the Perrine Bridge dominates the view.


The bridge itself is an engineering marvel. However, the most interesting thing about the bridge is that it is one of the few bridges in the United States that people are allowed to legally BASE jump from on a regular basis. We watched several people take the plunge off the bridge and it was very interesting to watch.









We didn't spend a lot of time downtown, but we found downtown Twin Falls to be clean and safe. We ate at two different restaurants downtown: Koto Brewing and Jasmine Thai and they were both great. 

Besides Twin Falls itself, the city is located in a nice location for getting out of town and exploring with close proximity to lots of attractions in southern Idaho, as well as northern Utah and northeast Nevada. 

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Minidoka National Historic Site

This morning we packed up camp at Craters of the Moon and started southwest towards Twin Falls. However, before we would check into our hotel, we would explore the concentration camp for Japanese Americans.









It is a sad, but powerful site. We spent about 2 hours and could have spent more time, except for the fact that it was so hot. A place I wouldn't mind returning to .

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Craters of the Moon National Monument

After resupplying in Pocatello yesterday afternoon, we made our way up to Craters of the Moon National Monument. I was a little nervous about getting a campsite at the Lava Flow Campground, since all the sites are first come/first serve. However, we were able to get a nice site. You have to walk a short path that's been cut out of the lava from the parking spot to the campsite. 


The site itself is cut out of the lava and offers great privacy. There's also an area that we called "the porch" where we were able to set up our camp chairs on a little lava bench.


After setting up camp and eating dinner we decided to get out and explore the monument a bit. Our first stop was the Devil's Orchard Nature Trail. It was a pleasant walk and we enjoyed walking through a landscape that is so different from what we are used to.






After the short loop hike at Devil's Orchard we took the Loop Road to Inferno Cone. This was a really interesting hike up a cinder cone as the sun began to set.



I really enjoyed the view from the summit area.



There's a really distinctive looking leaning tree at the summit area that was fun to photograph.


The last stop for the evening was the Spatter Cone area. 


One of the cones, Snow Cone had snow still lingering in its cool depths. 



From the Spatter Cone area we drove the rest of the loop road and back to the campground where we turned in for the night.

This morning we awoke and ate breakfast and then headed out for more exploration. We went to the visitor center and picked up a caving permit and then headed back to the Loop Road. Our first stop to explore was the Tree Molds Trail. 




The Tree Molds Trail was a short 1 mile to an area where lava had engulfed trees and the trees left impressions in the cooling and hardening lava. 




The Tree Molds Trail is an out and back trail. On the way back we saw some interesting birds including Western Tanagers, Lewis' Woodpeckers, and Mountain Bluebirds.


We also saw a curious squirrel.


When we returned to the trailhead, we ate a snack in the parking area and then set off on our second hike on the Broken Top Loop.


This hike was another pleasant one, a 1.8 mile loop that traversed some scenic areas and past the opening to a lava tube cave.




Along the way we caught some closeup views of dwarf buckwheat, one of the most interesting plants to call the monument home.


After returning to the car, we made a short drive to a roadside picnic table for lunch. With full bellies we headed out on our next adventure to explore the two lava tubes that are open to the public. The Caves area of the monument was the busiest part. We parked the car and set out on the paved trail equipped with headlamps. 


We initially bypassed Dew Drop Cave and headed to Indian Tunnel to explore the subterranean world of the monument.


It was a fun, but pretty tame descent into the lava tubes. A pretty easy walk that most people could easily handle. 




There were a series of skylight openings throughout the cave system and this allowed plenty of light into the caves. In fact, we probably could have traversed the cave without headlamps.



We emerged from the cave through a tight opening in the rock,


and then headed over to Dew Drop Cave.


Dew Drop Cave was just a short alcove type cave. However, it was nice and cool inside and drops of dew glistened in the light of our headlamps.


After our exploration of the caves, we headed back to the campground to relax for a bit. 

I relaxed for a little while back at camp but then started to get a little bored. I opted to have Noelle drop me off at the Spatter Cones parking area to allow me to walk the North Crater Trail back to the campground. 

The hike starts by following an asphalt paved path up a steep hill to an overlook of the Big Craters.




From there the trail alternates between short, steep climbs and descents. There were plenty of great views on this trail. In fact, I would say this was the most interesting of any of the trails I hiked in the monument. 





After making my way back to camp we made dinner. After dinner and just before sunrise we went for our last hike in the monument, the short North Crater Flow Trail. It was a short walk from the campground to the trailhead and it made a nice loop on elevated trails.