Thursday, June 6, 2019

June 6 – Malad Gorge and Ritter Island State Parks

Today we visited two more sections of Thousand Springs State Park.

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Malad Gorge is a very narrow gorge that has a waterfall at the end called the Devil’s Washbowl. It then opens out into a wider canyon.

Unfortunately because it a narrow spot, Interstate 84 crosses right there. You can see it just behind the pedestrian bridge in the park. It kind of spoils the ambiance.

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The placement of things in the park is a bit strange. The Devil’s Washbowl is the main drawing card, yet the pedestrian bridge crosses directly on top of it so you can not see it.

You do get a view upstream to the narrow gorge.

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And downstream to the wider canyon.

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This is the view (straight down) of the washbowl that you get from the bridge.

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To get to the only official viewpoint, where you can see it, you take an arcing path out into a field to a lookout fairly far down the canyon. You can’t even really see the canyon on the path.

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Jennie just got a new phone so I tried portrait mode, where it blurs the background.

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The photosphere.

I followed an unofficial path back along the rim to get some closer shots.

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Looking back down the canyon you can see the viewpoint, as the black spot in the upper right.

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I have seen pictures of people kayaking through that narrow gorge and down the falls.

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You can see tiny Jennie on the bridge, at the top of the picture below.

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There is a short driving tour to some other lookouts on the canyon rim.

Back towards the washbowl.

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To the left there is a small dam where some of the water is diverted into an irrigation channel.

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At the next stop we could see the channel taking the water far down to the end of the canyon and the larger Snake River Canyon below.

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The final stop was called Woody’s Cove. It is a box canyon that used to have a waterfall similar to the Devil’s Washbowl.

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I walked out along the rim for a shot back towards the end wall.

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You can just barely see Jennie and 3 other people on the rim.

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The photosphere.

We then moved south to Ritter Island State Park. It is another one where you drive down the Snake River Canyon wall to check on some emerging springs.

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We first had lunch in the great little picnic area.

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Crossing the bridge onto Ritter Island we could see the springs we would visit later.

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Then north onto the island and a short path to get a closeup view of Mini Miller Springs.

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A pelican few over us.

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They look much better in person. The wide shots always shrink things in the distance.

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The photosphere.

The viewpoint smelled really great. We think it is because of these trees that we see everywhere.

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If you try and smell an individual blossom you don’t get anything but I guess it must be a cumulative effect.

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This is a small power plant near the park entrance. They made the powerhouse look like a castle.

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Back at the picnic area, the parking lot was now full. Someone was having a big picnic.

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The final spring we visited was just a short distance south.

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The photosphere.

Then back to the car and home. This is the view of the springs as we drove up the canyon wall.

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Back at the RV the wind really picked up.

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It got so strong I was worried about our roof top satellite dish. I put it down and brought out the tripod mounted one that can’t really be hurt by the wind.

We actually had tumbleweeds blowing through the park and our horizon is disappearing due to the blowing dust.

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The weather for our time here so far has been great, with today’s high being 30C and the rest of the time close to that. Tomorrow the high is supposed to be 14C and cloudy. We are going to take the day off and get some chores done.

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