Day 36: Hagerman to Sawtooth Mountains Recreation Area, ID

In another jam packed day of adventure, we spent most of the day in or near various bodies of water. Shortly after sunrise, we hiked to Box Canyon. Something that I really wanted to do on this trip was to experience the blue springs of Idaho. My plan was to paddle board in the spring-fed Snake River, but there were too many complications with that. Luckily for us, Ian found the most perfect alternative that not only allowed us to see the blue springs, but actually swim right in them! How amazing. After a fairly easy descent into Box Canyon, we saw a beautiful waterfall. After following the trail through a maze of bushes where we felt like we were in the Tri-Wizard Cup Competition in Harry Potter - I figured that the path could close up behind us and we would be lost forever - but, instead, we ended up at a beach where the current was calm enough for us to swim. On the way I had a jump scare with a lizard on the trail that nearly made me pee my pants - I was on the watch for rattlesnakes not lizards- but luckily, we made it to the end in one piece. The water was icy cold and refreshing; everybody was hot enough to get in and swim around even though our skin kind of went numb. Most of us even put our heads underwater, which was enough to steal all your breath. It was pretty incredible. We had the whole canyon all to ourselves. The hike out was obviously mostly uphill, but we made it. We saw a flock of great egrets, a cool trout farm, and managed to avoid the fire ants which were all over the trail in huge colonies. We also saw more marmots and another bull snake, though this one wasn’t a surprise and I managed to avoid it completely . The kids and Ian thought it was pretty cool.

Following our adventures at Box Canyon, we retraced yesterday’s drive through Shoshone back to a fishing pond that had very recently been stocked with trout. Along the shore, though accompanied by many fly fishermen who were teaching local school children how to fish on a school field trip, we cast our lines in the water and had pretty good success. Admittedly not all of us fished as some of us chose to read our books and take a short nap. So Ian takes most of the credit for this trout haul.

Our third stop of the day was yet another trout pond to do (you guessed it) more fishing. Alistair and Liam were the stars of the show this time. Alistair caught three trout in the pond. And Liam brought in two. Seamus was the quickest out of the gate with the first catch, probably 30 seconds after casting his line in the water. We were lucky to (almost) catch our limit of trout today and have at least two dinners worth of fish. Tonight’s supper will include freshly caught pan fried trout with mushrooms and zucchini, warmed up canned southern style sweet potatoes, and corn on the cob. What a feast!

Once we were all fished out, it was time to head to our campsite for the night. We’re heading back up into the mountains - this time to the Sawtooth mountain range. These mountains are comparable to the Grand Teton mountains in beauty and snow capped-ness though with way fewer people around. We are camping at the Sawtooth Redfish Outlet campground site number five and pulled in right at dinner time. We had time to do a quick explore before getting the trout in the pan. Our campsite is very close walking distance to a beautiful snowcapped mountain ringed lake with bright blue water. It looks perfect for paddle boarding - this might be part of tomorrow’s adventure.

It has been a wonderful and very busy Thursday. We’re looking forward to a good sleep tonight and experiencing some more Idaho springs adventures tomorrow (hopefully some hot springs this time)!

Day 35: Craters of the Moon National Monument to Billingsley State Park, ID

With Craters of the Moon being a dark sky park, we couldn’t miss out on stargazing last night. We waited until the almost full moon set at about 3am and then Liam and I woke up to see what we could see. We located the Big Dipper and were able to see the Milky Way Galaxy, though satellites kept making an appearance in our dark sky photos.

Watching the moon set at 3am

Big Dipper

Milky Way

See the satellite?

After breakfast, we did the short North Crater Flow Trail right near our campsite to check out examples of the different kinds of lava flows. We saw Pahoehoe lava and Aa lava, as well as some really interesting monoliths that initially formed in the volcano, and then floated out on the lava flow and ended up settling in the middle of the lava field. Alistair found some beautiful wildflowers called Indian paint brushes, which were pretty special to see.

Indian paintbrush flowers

After the boys earned their Junior Ranger badges, it was time to head out. We drove about an hour to get to Idaho’s Mammoth Cave and a really fascinating, privately owned bird and natural history museum. The museum was initially created by founder Richard Evans, who was a barber as well as a hunter and hobby taxidermist. The cave was a really large lava tube where we could to do a self guided tour through it using headlights and lanterns. 

After lunch, we checked out the museums. They were packed to the rafters with every kind of taxidermied animal that you could imagine - from wolves, to giraffes, to weasels to pheasants. There were so many fossils and animals, pottery and clothes, and American Indian, Mayan, African and Egyptian artifacts. It was incredible. Apparently it’s the largest private collection in the Midwest. The founder really was a huge collector of animals and antiquities and this is his life’s collection presented in a one-of-a-kind museum.

The jackalope makes another appearance.

The area surrounding the cave and the museum was quite the sight. There were peacocks, marmots and emus - live ones - on the grounds, so we got to hear and see those. There was also tons of junk everywhere - old saws and machinery, wagons and cabins, and just junk everywhere. There were tons of sheds on this property. It was certainly an interesting place to visit and somewhere unlike anything we have seen so far.

After heading out from the museum, we drove into Shoshone. We got distracted by a couple of antique shops, perhaps we were inspired from all the interesting things we saw at the museum! Seamus found his trip souvenir; using money he received from Grandma Susan, he purchased a beautiful suede cowboy hat. Daddy helped negotiate the antique seller down to $25 so Seamus is pleased as punch about his new headwear. 

Following Shoshone, we headed down to the Falls, which are supposed to be the Niagara Falls of the West. It was supposed to be the best time of year for them with spring runoff from the snow. They weren’t nearly as big as we expected based on pictures, though they were still incredibly beautiful. The canyon they were in is interesting because it was the site of one of Evil Knievel’s stunts where he attempted to ride a steam powered rocket motorbike from one rim of the canyon over to the other. The stunt was unsuccessful as his parachute malfunctioned and went off right at the beginning of the stunt ruining everything. He ended up riding his rocket motorcycle into the canyon (instead of over it) and landing on the river bank on the far side, apparently sustaining only minor injuries.  We think that this is incredible given the size and scale of the canyon that we saw today. It certainly makes for an interesting history of the canyon beyond the waterfalls. We actually got a photo of the ramp that was built for the stunt that you can still see from the top of the canyon.

See the dirt ramp on the left side of the cliff?

Our last stop of the day is our campsite for the night at Billingsley Creek State Park near Hagerman, Idaho. It is a beautiful, brand new state park campground that just opened last fall and it is one of the nicest we’ve been at. We’re really excited because there are free showers, fire pits, water, electric and sewer hookups and most importantly, a little library! We are really living in luxury tonight. Also to note that the weather has completely changed. It went up to 31°C today which feels super hot after being in the mountains for so long. We are all adjusting to the hot temperatures as it now feels like we’re in the middle of summer. Maybe we will be able to get in some swimming tomorrow at one of the many springs in the Hagman area - here’s to hoping.