Ice caves and Idaho

On Tuesday, our last night at the Dinosaur National Monument campground, we sat outside and marveled at the night sky. We were rewarded by a dazzling shooting star that seemed to take several seconds to blaze its path across a big portion of the visible sky. Wow! We enjoyed this campsite--it was very quiet and had a good view of Split Mountain. We also attended a couple of evening programs put on by the rangers here, one on bats and the other on mountain men. If any of you saw the recent movie The Revenant, that mountain man, Hugh Glass, played by Leonardo Decaprio, was around here. The ranger told the "true story" about him, and it was actually pretty close to the movie. Very tough guy.

View of Split Mountain from our campsite.

On Wed. we drove west, heading for a small state park just southwest of Salt Lake City, called Camp Floyd. Jack was interested in seeing it, because Gen. Buford, a Civil War general of Battle of Gettysburg fame (a major character in the novel Jack is writing) had been stationed at this US Army camp for a couple of years. We stopped at a motel Wed. night just short of Camp Floyd, after driving through some awesome rocky canyons to get here. (Utah's scenery is jawdropping, no matter where you go.)

One awesome scene was a large waterfall along the side of the road.

On Thursday morning, we drove to Camp Floyd SP, only about a half hour's drive from the motel. They have a small museum with a movie in the old commissary building, which is the only original building left from Camp Floyd. Across the street from the museum is a restored old inn, which was used by the locals and the Army to house visitors during the time of Camp Floyd, which was 1858 to 1861, and for years after that as well, since the Overland Stage stopped here. This is an interesting footnote in American history. In 1857/1858, rumors were started that the Mormons here in Utah were rebelling against the laws of the US government. The Mormon militia had actually killed some non-Mormon immigrants but apparently didn't really have plans for a full-out rebellion. President Buchanan sent 3,500 troops (about one-third of the entire Army) to Utah to suppress the suspected rebellion. There were skirmishes and confrontations between the Army and the Mormon militia, called the "Nauvoo Legion," but no full-pitched battles in this so-called Mormon War. The Mormons harassed the Army as it marched into Utah, blockading roads and burning grass so they had no food for their animals, and destroying part of their supply trains. Tensions ran high, but casualties were few. Finally, the Army and the Mormons negotiated and the Army was allowed to build a camp here at Camp Floyd, a good distance away from Salt Lake City so as not to have the soldiers' immorality affect the good Mormons living there, and a non-Mormon was allowed to replace Brigham Young as governor of the territory. So the Army stayed here for a few years, forming what was then the third-largest city in Utah! They monitored the Mormons, and protected immigrants heading through the territory to other areas--and were basically bored stiff with nothing to do but drink and gamble--until they were recalled for the Civil War in 1861. The Mormons actually benefited from the Army coming here, as they were hired to make bricks and build barracks and other buildings for the Army camp and were paid in cold, hard cash, which had been in very short supply in Utah before the arrival of the Army. And when the Army closed the camp and left in 1861, several million dollars in buildings and equipment were sold to Mormons for $100,000!

The Camp Floyd State Park sign with Carol on left reading commemorative plaques.

Inside the museum. John Buford was a Captain in the U.S Second Dragoons (cavalry) at this camp.

Carol in front of the well-preserved old Stagecoach Inn.

After leaving the Park, we drove through Salt Lake City, which was huge and full of traffic--early Labor Day weekend travelers! (Grateful for HOV lanes...) We made it across the Idaho state line, and ran into a huge dust storm. Shades of the Dust Bowl! Fortunately we drove out of it after about an hour. It was kind of scary.

Reminiscent of the "Dust Bowl" days, The blowing dust hides parts of the mountain ahead.

We stopped for the night at a sleepy little Mom and Pop RV campground and had a quiet night's sleep. The rates were reasonable too. (Don't think we mentioned before that we're trying to achieve an average nightly housing rate of $25--we're pretty close at this point, especially after 4 nights in Dinosaur at $9/night.) The Mom and Pop place was only $27, which is about as cheap as you can find full hookups at private campgrounds nowadays.

We drove on Friday morning to reach the fishing area that Jack has been salivating over, which is near Ketchum and Sun Valley. We passed through a long stretch of lava-covered plains with lots of nearby spatter cones and shield volcanos. This place had active volcanos several thousand years ago--all are apparently dormant now. [Note to Ninette and Vickie: looks a lot like the Big Island, except with sagebrush!] We saw a sign for "Ice Cave" and it sounded intriguing, so we stopped. The cave was a partially collapsed lava tube that maintains a 20-ft thick layer of ice in the bottom. We took the tour (after going back to the van to get our jackets) and it was great. Back in the 1940s they used to do ice skating exhibitions down there! And according to our guide, a high school student named Gabe, the nearby town of Shoshone had the first cold beer in the area due to harvesting the ice from this cave. Why is ice in here even when the temperatures above can be 90+ degrees F? It has something to do with the air flow. Gabe skated on it. It's like a big glacier down there--weird!

This dinosaur greeted us on the way to the Ice Cave entrance.

As we entered the Ice Cave this bench was there to remind us that the walk back up was tiring.

Our guide Gabe stops to explain that steep steps are ahead as we enter the lava tube.

Deep within the lava tube our guide Gabe walks on the ice to prove to us it's very thick solid ice.

On the way back out of the ice cave, Jack makes use of that rest bench. (Note jacket he's wearing.)

We headed on toward Silver Creek, one of the streams Jack plans to fish. He wanted to get a first look at it. While he was watching the many trout lining up below a bridge looking for bugs, Carol took a short hike to see the Hemingway Monument, a carved stone in a quiet place along the banks of the creek. Hemingway lived here in Ketchum for a good part of his later years, loving the mountains and the hunting and fishing, and in fact he killed himself here in 1961--not necessarily a good advertisement for the place but I guess he had "issues." We need to read more about that.

Commemorative Stone to Hemingway.

Silver Creek is known as the graduate school for fly fishers. (You have to be a good fly fisher to catch the trout here.) The creek was once the most famous trout stream in the US. 

It has since been surpassed by Henry's Fork of the Snake River, but it's still world-renowned.

We're now ensconced in one of the few private RV parks in the Ketchum area with full hookups. We're waiting for the holiday weekend -- and all the people -- to go away!

When Carol went grocery shopping (her turn now to cook) Jack sat and waited in our air-conditioned van. A dog barking in the pickup next to him looked strange. 

Then Jack realized the dog had on sunglasses.