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.
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