Camping: none
Cell coverage: at least minimal most of the time.
We headed out to the Thousand Springs State Park as a day trip from Three Island Crossing SP. This park has a number of units to entertain you with a variety of landscapes, history and activities: Malad Gorge, Vardis Fisher, Kelton Trail, Earl M. Hardy Box Canyon Springs Nature Preserve, Billingsley Creek, Ritter Island, Crystal Springs and Niagara Springs. One could spend many days just exploring these units. Fortunately, they are all within short distances of each other. Some units are as close as a mile from each other, but navigating the roads (because of the canyons) can take a little extra time. They are scattered among the slash of Interstate 84, fertile farmlands irrigated with throbbing sprinklers, dairy farms, irrigation canals, the Snake River and Malad River, canyon fractures in the landscape, and small, friendly towns.
Malad Gorge: This unit is situated adjacent to the interstate. I have driven this section of highway for the last 30 years and not once stopped. It's so easy to swing off the highway and take a break here to look at the canyon, which is very difficult to even get a glimpse of when buzzing by on US I84. There's a foot bridge that takes you right over the Devils Washbowl (a plunge pool for the Malad River) when you can stop, look down and get that dizzying feeling as the bridge flexes some. The canyon at this point is perhaps 150 feet wide and 200 feet deep. As I stood on the bridge a canyon wren gave its distinctive call while swallows or other birds flitted about. Of course all this with the thump of big trucks pounding over the I84 bridge that's 150 feet away. After crossing the footbridge, there is a trail to an overlook. It's quite covered by bird poop and the information signs as old and poop covered so you can't read them. BUT, it is a good overlook even with your hands in your pockets! The trail continues on to introduce you to the craggy landscape. This unit also gives you a nice picnic area and some sort of ORV trail that was closed when we visited. (Find out more.) This may be a great area for mountain bikes. We need to figure out how to carry the bikes on the camper!
Kelton Trail: This is just upstream from the Malad Gorge unit and is an old Oregon Trail (north section) crossing of the Malad River. We stopped here on the way to Lake Walcott SP. We had to do some dead reckoning and serious map interpretation to find the parking lot. We arrived and noted the sign, which had nothing on it. (I will insert a picture here when it's downloaded off the camera.) A small sign to the right and hanging on the fence told us that it was state park land. The road into the parking lot was very rough with potholes and rocks, but hey, what's a big Ford truck for? We were very glad we stopped there as it was at the head of the Malad Gorge, where the river first starts slicing it's way through the basalt formations. Very interesting eroded basalt with holes and dished out pools that was difficult to walk on. It also was a bit treacherous to look down into the very narrow gorge, which in the beginning was perhaps three feet wide. The Oregon trail was marked using white posts, but was not thoroughly identified. It took us some time to figure things out but it was a fun walk. Additionally, the area is trenched with an irrigation canal that adds to navigation issues, but we found the small bridge to get us across the section we were interested in crossing. Of course, the canal made it more difficult to imagine the wagons making their way through these maze of rocks and cracks, but certainly it was a curious mind exercise to think about the daily chore this landscape must have been.
Earl M. Hardy Box Canyon Springs Nature Preserve:
Billingsley Creek: What an interesting unit! You enter this unit from a small parking lot (don't even try to drive a big rig into this lot as my truck camper was almost too big). Immediately you are introduced to the ruins of an old fish farm. Races full of aquatic vegetation, crumbling concrete, old fencing and netting to keep birds out, dangerous holes and the old ruins of Vardis Fisher house who wrote Mountain Man (1965) that was the story line for the movie Jeremiah Johnson. As we entered, a group of men we coming out carrying scuba tanks. They had been to the small Fisher lake taking a certification course. One guy said there were no fish, but in the small stream next to the hatchery, there were many trout. AND some were big! I would suspect they got hit hard by the local kids, but hey, someone needs a challenge. Dangit... I need to pack my fishing stuff. You can put a small boat in here and float down to Billingsly Creek Unit or just past to a State of Idaho WMA where you can easily unload your boat up some steps and a short haul to the parking lot. BTW, the WMA unit and loads of marmots along the road as you enter. We must have seen a dozen. Most were young of the year, but they scampered everywhere.
Ritter Island:
Crystal Springs:
Niagra Springs:
Nearby activities: See Three Island Crossing State Park
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