Day Nineteen
Idaho, Grand Tetons
Having completed another segment of our tour, we are now entering the last segment and the last few days of our western stint. We would begin today by traversing the southern half of Idaho and heading towards the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
Our first stop was an easy on/off from I-84 to visit Mallard Gorge. The gorge is an amazing cut in the flat terrain the surrounds it. The black sides of the gorge mask its depth, at over 250'. Its a very narrow gorge, so the site is very dramatic. We had seen a canyon like this one on Mt Rainier called Box Canyon. What's nice about this site is that it is right off the highway, so close in fact that part of the highway actually crosses the gorge. To get to this site, you just follow the signs off of the highway, and into Mallard Gorge State Park. The road leads to rest rooms, a picnic area and the overlook. The overlook takes you to an area where you can walk along the canyon rim and a foot bridge that takes you over that heart of the canyon and a series of falls where the water from the 20-30' wide river is squeezed into a 5' opening. The tunder of the water as it flows 250' below you is almost as amazing as the canyon itself. Again, this is one of those stops right off an interstate that is more interesting than the normally provided rest areas. It won't cost you any more time, you get to see some interesting feature, and all the facilities of a normal rest area.
Our second stop would be an attempt to visit the site of the Minidoka Internment camp located outside of Jerome and Eden, ID. We had learned about this camp the other day while visiting the Four Corners Cultural Museum. One of the cultures that make up this region were Americans of Japanese ancestry, and a lot of them arrived here after having been interned at this camp, one of many the the U.S. Government set up to intern these Americans. We had no idea of the exact location of the camp, but a visit to a local information center revealed the area it was in (although it was amazing that they had no information on this!). We made several attempts to locate the site using this information, but were unsucessfull. We were both dismayed that something like this would just be left to blow away like the winds that cross this plain.
Moving further east past Pocatello, we drive north of Soda Springs through a very nice secluded valley, part of the Caribou National Forest. What was nice about this valley is that it is a broad plain of grass and grazing cattle surrounded by forested mountains. Its remoteness and this picturesque western valley is what makes it worth while drive.  One funny thing did happen as we were driving this stretch, was that we came over a crest in the road and suddenly saw hundreds of sheep in the road! We obviously stopped and pulled over to witness this spectacle. We watched as the sheep were being escorted by ranchers who were obviously moving them to their winter range in the lower valley below.
We finally entered Wyoming and headed north to the Grand Tetons, and Grand Teton National Park. Towering more than a mile above the valley known as Jacson Hole. the Grand Teton rises to 13,770 feet above sea level. Twelve Teton peaks reach above 12,000 feet elevation, high enough to support a dozen mountain glaciers. In contrast to the abrupt eastern face, the west side of the range slopes gently, showing the angle of tilt of this rectangular block of the Earth's crust. Youngest of the mountains in the Rocky Mounatin system, the Teton Range displays some of North America's oldest rocks. Our lodgings for the night are at Jenny Lake. To bad we didn't have totally clear skies for some more star trail pictures, but this led to a spectacular sunrise the next day.
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