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Published: August 19th 2013
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August 16, 2013 Friday We packed up and left our campsite at 9:00 a.m. It’s a beautiful, blue sky, sunny day and 64 degrees.
Head East on I-84, passing Boise and Twin Falls and lots and lots of corn fields again. A stop in Jerome, Idaho for lunch and then back on the road. Lots of open prairie lands and sagebrush. Smoke from state fires all around makes for a real hazy looking sky on the horizon. Except for a few ranches here and there the land is very devoid of humanity in this part of Idaho. At least what we’re passing on the highway.
We’ve crossed the Snake River twice now, maybe one more time? I guess that’s why it’s called the ‘Snake’ River. At our last site we were less than a mile to the Snake River and we traveled all day and we’re ‘still’ on the Snake River.
Acres and acres of windmills in the distance – enormous ones. I don’t mean huge, I mean enormous!
Arrive Massacre Rocks SP at 3:45, find our site is right on the Snake River – wow, what a view. The clouds here look so low it
appears you can just reach right up and touch them. On the other side of the trailer we have the view of lots of those enormous windmills. Pics below.
95 degrees when we got here, I think we’re in for the night. Marge is singing “Oh how I long for the cool Oregon coast!”
August 17, 2013 Saturday Today we went to the Interpretive Center and got information on the area and saw lots of artifacts from the Pioneer’s travels on the Oregon Trail. We saw their clothes, the oxen yokes, eating & cooking implements, tools, also a display of what they needed to take in the wagon to eat; all told, 225 lbs. of bacon, flour, beans, salt, rice, corn meal, and much more. Very interesting to see and to realize these Pioneers had a long and arduous travel out West, as well as frightening and deadly when the Indians attacked. Where we’re staying is called Massacre Rocks State Park and it’s a place that was famous as a camping area on the trail; the rocks they had to pass through was a perfect ambush area for the Shoshone tribe. Over the years, many were killed
on their pass through this area. See pics. That same path through the rocks is now I-86.
After lunch we headed out to see Register Rock, a few miles from the campground. It’s in a beautiful picnic spot now and back then it was also a place that the Pioneers camped. There were large rocks all around and on one in particular they decided to ‘register’ their names. Interesting to see the different dates: 1862. 1865, 1889, etc. See pics.
Then we took a short drive out a gravel road to see if we could get up close to some of the enormous windmills. Got pretty close, but not allowed of course, to get up close and personal. The blades on some of these windmills here are 300’ long, the length of a football field – just the blades! They’re really huge.
A walk down to the Snake River in the evening after the temperature cools off – it was 97 today – and we enjoyed the beautiful river with the mammoth mesas all around. There are white pelicans galore and this morning we were seeing Canada Geese flying in formation, and lots of American Kestrels, a
falcon type of bird. Also spotted were red tailed hawks.
Massacre Rock History The park features a famous configuration of boulders along the south bank of the Snake River along the trail, known alternatively as Massacre Rocks, "Gate of Death", or "Devil's Gate". Emigrants gave this name to the narrow passage of the trail through the rocks, from the fear of possible ambush by
Native Americans. According to diaries of emigrants, settlers in five wagons clashed with
Shoshoni just east of the rocks on August 9–10, 1862. Ten emigrants died in the fight, which involved four wagon trains. The skirmishes took place east of the park and not at Devil's Gate as commonly believed. Some confrontations may have occurred there, but they remain unverified.
The
Clark Massacre of 1851 occurred just west of Massacre Rocks, closer to the Raft River.
The rocks were often used as campsite for wagon trains along the trail. Many emigrants carved their names and dates on the rock face, which is now protected by a shelter.
The actual passage through the rocks is now the route of
Interstate 86 along the south edge of the park.
Geologically the park was created
during the repeated
volcanic activity on the
Snake River Plain. The rocks themselves were deposited in their present location at the end of the last
ice age, approximately, during the catastrophic flood known as the
Bonneville Flood, when much of
Lake Bonneville surged down the Snake River.
A notch in the cliff on the north bank of the Snake opposite the park was the site of an ancient waterfall of a side channel of the waters in the aftermath of the flood.
The park also includes a
visitor center describing the history and geology of the park. It has access to the Snake River, as well as a campground. It is accessible by automobile on Interstate 86. It is also accessible on a foot trail from nearby rest areas just east of the park on Interstate 86. The footpaths also provide access to remnants of the original Oregon Trail on the south side of the highway.
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Wow...lots neat pics!
Wow, some different terrain than that in which you spent the last few weeks. I'm always amazed at the vastly different types of scenery within our national boundaries. And it must make all that history come alive for you out there! Massacres!! Wow!