Soda Springs, Idaho

We hit the road early and were able to catch an amazing sunrise over the mountains as we traveled from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole.  We made our way to Idaho.  I had a few sites saved in my maps that I wanted to visit, but wasn’t sure our trip route would take us through that particular area, as luck would have it, it did.

First, we found the ruts from the original Oregon Trail. What we saw was not what I had seen when researching for this trip. I expected to see actual ruts in the ground where the wagons had gotten stuck. I mainly just saw an open field with a stake in the ground that explained that somewhere in this general area, was the Oregon (and California) trail. A little disappointing, but I was able to see for myself where those wagons had once been.

Another point on my map was a captive geyser in Geyser Park. This geyser erupts every hour, on the hour. I happened to see water shooting up as we drove down the road, so we quickly made our way toward the area. We got there just in time to see it continue to erupt and then stop. It was our very first geyser and so thrilling!

Around the geyser we saw signs about a walking trail to Hooper Springs which was another area I had on my map. We were trying to hurry to make it to our next destination and was not planning to stop long, but I still wanted to see it nonetheless. We decided to forego the walking trail and try to find the natural spring as we continued to drive. About a mile down the road we were able to turn down a road that went directly to the spring. This spring has a very interesting story. It contains naturally carbonated water. As settlers were driving on the Oregon Trail, they would stop at this spring and drink the cold water as well as add it to their various containers to have as they continued on their journey. In a time when resources were rare, this was a surprising luxury. Visitors are able to drink from the spring to taste the water. What a treat this was.

Overall, we probably spent less than an hour in Soda Springs, but it has so many cool little historic places. It seemed to be a very small town and we were usually the only or one of the very few in the places we visited. If you find yourself passing through, definitely look up the places mentioned, they are interesting to see. Next up we make our way to Grand Teton National Park. In the meantime, goforth and explore!