Craters of the Moon & Twin Falls

Liz and I pushed on from our Good Sam Village of the Trees  campground in Idaho--the grass expanses were the best of any commercial campground we had yet been in.   The restrooms need updating, as they are old and the toilet stalls are small, but Liz used the shower and said it was good.  The laundry facilities were good.  Everything was clean.

We talked with Helen today and she is getting new medicine, and hopes that she will improve more rapidly now that she is at home.  We hope so too, but know she would have really liked the area we drove through today, and would have loved the Craters of the Moon campground.  It is dry camping, but the restrroms are equiped with electricity and outlets.  The campsites are very nice, mostly with some privacy from your neighbor, and the erie beauty of the area is lovely.  The expanse of black lava is so immense that it can be seen from space, and the trail guide shows a space image of the area.  You can see most of the formations by road, but a good deal of the monument requires permit aaproval to access, as past tourism has mnanaged to damage the fragile lava terrain.

We drove the loop drive, stopping and taking short walks along th way on well prepared and maintained trails.  One area was right along the road and showed the thick lava river flow that looked all the world like a black  glacier frozen in place.  It was here that we also had a strong cell signal--there is no service in the campground or at the visitor center.  We checked in with Julie and Helen and all is well.

 

Another stop was at the end of the loop, where trails led to the spatter cones, large cone shaped lava depoits that spit-and-spat from a vent until they formed the cone shape seen today.

 

The whole day was`overcast with occasional showers, and it sprinkled a couple of times in the night.  Today we left and headed towatd Twin Falls where we will stay two nights in the KOA there and explore the area. 

We already started by stopping at the most excellent visitor center right on the Snake River next to the famous Perrine Bridge. A lovely walking trail goes along the canyon, and art work such as the staute above, is placed along the trail.  Overlooks of the famous Perrine Bridge are on both sides of the bridge.   People from all over the world come to leap off the bridge and sail up the Snake canyon to land at the river's edge.  One group from Australia (had to be be, Brad...) was preparing to jump just as we got there, and I was able to catch a good sequence of them preparing to leap, lowering a sail, gliding down the canyon, and landing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He apparently czme right down where he was supposed to, because his buddy also lept from the bridge, and he too sailed down to land beside him.  I captured a few photos of his buddy dangling over the rive--lucky photos as I was using a telephoto zoom for all of these:

After leaving the Perrine Bridge, we traveled upriver to the Shoshone Falls, which upon first discovery were so magnificent that the mist rising into the air above the canyon from the crashing falls could be seen for miles away.  Around theturn of the last century, a opower plant was built which harnessed the flows, but the falls are still impressive in spring when they are said to rival the Niagra.  Today, in the autumn, the falls have dwindled and do not cascade across their entire broad reach, but drop in a series of ribbons, one of which is quite beautiful:

The presence of these dams on the Snake River has allowed massive iorrigation of the desert in this area--with bountiful production of potatoes, corn, alfalfa, and more.  The dams are controversial in this day, because of the impact on the migratory fish that come up the Columbia River and into the Snake River system.

Upon returning to our campground, afer stopping at an O'Reilly's for some 40 amp fuses, I fixed the trailer by replacing the pair of blown fuses.  All is working fine now.  The battery is being charged by the shore line again.