I was driving down a winding Idaho mountain road just as the sun was rising over the horizon when I saw them: Three huge white wolves running across the Sawtooth Valley floor.
I slowed my car and watched as the two rear wolves caught up to the leader, who had been far ahead but stopped to wait. Then, together, they ran into a patch of trees and I drove on to my destination. This is Idaho.
On that same drive, I saw a massive raccoon (I think that’s what it was), an elk, and several groups of deer. How wild.
I’d come to Idaho for one reason: To visit Ernest Hemingway’s grave. But in the end, I found many reasons to fall in love with the state I was just exploring for the first time.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.”
Ernest Hemingway
Here are five places I went.
Shoshone Falls
Once I set foot in Idaho, my first thought was that it was like opening an oven while you checked the food. You have to hold your face there for a minute, except in this case, you can’t close the door and walk away. Hot and dry. I drank an entire bottle of water in an instant.
I drove from Boise to Shoshone Falls and it was a flat and easy two-hour drive. Flatland and a lot of wide-open space was probably good for that signature root vegetable we all know and love (potatoes, in case you’re not picking up what I’m laying down there).
As the landscape starts to become more interesting, it also becomes more populous. The city of Twin Falls is an oasis. It’s filled with your standard big-box commercial stores, well-known budget hotels, chain restaurants, and new suburbs. Here you can find anything your average person could ever hope for … and some waterfalls.
I’m over the falls
At Shoshone Falls, just steps outside of the commercial district, you pay a small park entrance fee to enter.
To get to the falls, you drive down a steep paved road into a granite canyon. Small waterfalls shoot from the rocks along the roadside as you pass the narrow way, slowly and carefully.
At the bottom is a small shack selling snow cones, hot dogs, and gimmicky American Indian souvenirs. I bought a watermelon snow cone and walked over to the roaring surge.
People like waterfalls. I do too, but I don’t get all giddy about it. So, when I made my way over to the viewing platform, my first thought was, “meh.” I was much more impressed by the small falls gutting off the mountain.
Now don’t get me wrong; these falls are big and impressive by waterfall standards. At 212 feet tall and 900 feet wide, they are one of the largest natural waterfalls in the U.S. and taller than Niagara Falls. They’re just … like Niagara Falls … commercial.
Being surrounded by houses and industrial wires, they lack the magic that unexpected, wild waterfalls hold. But they make pretty pictures.
I like a lake
Up the hill and back a ways, there’s a “secret” not so secret lake sitting at the bottom of a granite canyon. It’s blue and clear as glass. Kids jumped off the granite boulders into the water 30 feet below. I watched a man on a paddleboard run over a man that was swimming. I waited for a fight, but I guess people are nicer in Idaho. He apologized, the man said, “No worries,” and swam away. Where I’m from, there’d have been a fight for sure.
This is a picture of me watching it happen (below).
Hi Ho, Hi Ho Hiking I will go
A two-mile loop encircled the Dierkes Lake and climbed up into the granite cliff face leaving the lake some 1,000 feet below. I had the place almost entirely to myself as I walked the well-marked trail and stairs around the lake leading to the top of the granite walls surrounding it.
It was mid-day, and about halfway through, I started to wonder what the symptoms of heatstroke were. I tried drinking my water, but it was boiling and not that helpful.
The peak of the canyon is about 1,000 feet tall. Once up there, I looked down over the edge into the deep water below, and I wondered if I could survive that jump. The water just looked so good, and I bet cold. As I was thinking, a couple nearly startled me over the edge when the man shouted, “Hey, look a lizard!”
It was a tiny little brown lizard about four inches long and barely noticeable against the dark brown rock. I complimented his keen observation skills and silently thanked him for pulling me out of my jumping fantasy. (Later, I Googled it, and it turns out I would have died).
Craters of the Moon
Did you know there are volcanoes in Idaho? I didn’t. Craters of Moon National Park is somewhere in the middle of the state. It is along US 20 between Arco and Carey. These towns are so small you’ll miss them if you blink. So essentially, it’s in the middle of nowhere, with good reason. Lava, and volcanoes, it turns out, aren’t very welcoming. Not even thousands of years after their angry outbursts.
At over 400,000 acres, the majority of the land might go unnoticed as you drive past. The park boasts three major lava fields over 400 miles of the state. That’s massive! The park has more than 25 volcanic cones, which are technically active but haven’t erupted in over 2,000 years.
It is a silent place void of life and color except for the relentless wind.
It looks like a big black dirt patch that has been recently tilled by a giant. This, I learned, is splatter lava from the erupting 250-m cones. When the cones erupted, the spatter covered an area over 50 miles in circumference. Fifty miles of splatter!
It only receives 15 to 20 inches of rain a year, has very high winds, and unlivable lava earth, so very few things grow on the land. So, it makes it an unwelcoming but stunning place.
Hike to the death
Hiking is one of the few things it’s good for. However, there is a play of light at sunset across this lava that glitters, evoking magic and mystery.
I decided, on the advice of a ranger, to take the “the scenic hike.” After two hours in the sweltering sun, I was back at the park entrance. Cool, except my car was two miles in the opposite direction. I thought I’d been on a loop. Being lost on a trail is absolutely how I’ll die one day.
As I walked along the crest of one of the cones, I struggled to keep myself upright, and I had to remove my hat, it was so windy.
A quote came to mind as I traipsed back across the lava.
“Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!”
Dante “Inferno”
Redfish Lake
With the recent success of my rappelling adventure in Colorado, I decided to take a technical rock-climbing lesson.
I drove over an hour from Ketchum into the Sawtooth Mountains to meet my instructor, Steve, at Redfish Lake. It was on this drive that I saw the wolves. They were traipsing along the mountain valley like they owned the place (Hint: they do).
Redfish Lake is a popular place in the middle of the Sawtooth Mountain Range. It’s unique because, as an alpine lake, it’s crystal clear and is at an elevation of 6,500 feet. Wowzer.
This lake is the place to be during summertime in Idaho. Anchored by an old-school camp lodge and cabins, it’s also popular for fishing, boating, swimming, fish spawning, and well, you name it. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a “Kellerman’s Resort” ala “Dirty Dancing.”
Rock climbing 101
I met Steve on the beach outside of the lodge. He gave me my gear: a harness, climbing shoes, and helmet. We hiked a short distance to a nearby series of boulders. The main boulder was about 40 feet high and posed a variety of different climbing challenges.
He taught me the language of top-roping, aka, climbing with a roped partner. Also how to tie a figure eight and fisherman’s knots so I could secure my own ropes. I learned too to spot places in the rock where I could gain a foothold. He showed me how to recognize rock features and explained how I could use them to help me climb.
This, when you’re overweight and in your mid-forties, is all easier said than done. When you are on a rock wall, your body balancing on a quarter-inch of a boulder, your nails dug into a crevice to hold the entire weight of your body, well, it ain’t easy.
One particular climb required me to balance and shift from one foot to another in a sort of jumping motion. Needless to say, I landed directly on my ass. Good thing I was only a few feet off the ground for that one and my rope caught me before any damage was done.
Another climb required me to have both arms vertical while lifting my foot to my hip level. Hahahaa. I got up to my knees and hauled my ass up, so I have nice souvenir scars.
When I fell or struggled, Steve said it was because I “failed to commit.” This, I told him, is the story of my life.
After, we ate lunch from the grill and watched the boaters on the lake just like Baby and Johnny would have.
Hemingway’s Grave in Ketchum
I often visit cemeteries on my travels, especially those of famous artists and writers. This, though, was my first visit to Idaho. Finally, I was here to pay my respects to Papa.
Ernest Hemingway loved Ketchum, Idaho. He visited the place frequently until finally buying a home there. Papa spent the last years – the last seconds – of his life there, where he chose to die.
He is buried in Ketchum Cemetery, next to his wife, Mary. His grave is marked with a simple, large stone. It is well adorned with trinkets and drinks for the man who loved his booze.
I found a place at a distance under a shade tree. There I doodled in my notebook while a parade of visitors stopped by. He wasn’t one for attention, but I think even he would appreciate the honor intended by the masses still paying our respects.
Hemingway Memorial
Not too many miles away down Trail Creek Road in Sun Valley is the Hemingway Memorial.
It’s tucked at the entrance of a popular Proctor Mountain Peak trail. Behind it is a lovely view of Bald Mountain and Sun Valley. There’s also the remains and monument to the world’s first chair lift.
A bust of Hemingway is next to a quiet pond surrounded by trees and flowing waters with the background mountains.
The inscription at the base of the sculpture reads:
“Best of all he loved the fall, the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods. Leaves floating on the trout streams and above the hills. The high blue windless skies, now he will be a part of them forever.”
I think when we visit these places they become a part of us forever too.
Read other Idaho stories here.
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