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Some Interesting Facts about Idaho

With Hells Canyon the Seven Devils Mountains, and the Snake River, Idaho offers more than just potatoes. It landscape is dramatic----and for less forbidding than the names of its features imply.

Boise; Idaho's unassuming capital was christened by French fur traders delighted to encounter the wooded riverbanks here after a trying journey across the austere high desert of southern Idaho. Boise, from Boise, French for "wooded "' boasts a verdant 13-mile greenbelt--a playground for pedestrians and bicycler---along the Boise River, where it flows through the heart of the city. Most of Boise's attractions cluster conveniently around the river. Within the lovely green expanse of Julia Davis Park is the Idaho Historical Museum and its collection of pioneer-era homes; Zoo Boise, which boasts a large birds of prey collection; the hands-on Discovery Center of Idaho; and the Boise Art Museum.

Idaho City: Rte 21, known as the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Route, leads to Idaho City and the lush Sawtooth Wilderness beyond Set in the middle of the Boise Basin, the city was born in a lucrative 1862 gold boom that drew 30,000 inhabitants to the area by 1865. It remains a well preserved relic of the boisterous boom days, with sturdy brick buildings lining wood-plank sidewalks.

Area: 83574 sq.mi, 14th Land 82751 sq. mi., 11th - Water 823 sq.mi

Agriculture: Cattle, potatoes, dairy products, wheat, sugar beets, barley.

Industry: Food processing, lumber and wood products, machinery, chemical products, paper products, silver and other mining, tourism.

Pioneer business such as the Boise Basin Mercantile still operate along Main Street, where you can dine and drink in restaurants and saloons that date back to 1867. The Boise Basin Museum, housed in an 1867 post office, recalls the area's heyday. A mile south of town, Warm Springs Resort relaxes bathers with 97 degrees f water from the same hot springs that soothed tired miners in the 1860s.

Sawtooth National Recreation Area; three jagged mountain ranges rising more than 10,000 feet cut across the skyline of this enchanting section of the Sawtooth National Forest. More than 300 well-hidden alpine lakes nestle amid the forested peaks. Of interest at the Redfish Lake Visitor Center near Stanley, with views of Redfish Lake, are the mounted example of chinook, Kokanee, and sockeye salmon. Other exhibits explain the flora, fauna and geology of the area.

Not far to the South lies the town of Ketchum, where Ernest Hemingway lived and is buried, and fashionable Sun Valley, the country's first ski resort, which now draws sophisticated leisure-seekers--including the Hollywood set--year-round.

Craters Of The Moon National Monument; this lunar landscape boasts one of the nation's highest concentrations of volcanic features, some formed as recently as 2,000 years ago. The lava flows and cinder cones were actually used for moon-walking practice by astronauts in the 1960s.

Pocatello; A Shoshone chief named Pocatello lent his name to this town, part of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. The government purchased some of the land to make way for a new north-south railroad, and a tent city sprang up in 1882 where this rail line intersected the Union Pacific. Just off Main Street the three-story 1915 Oregon Short Line Depot still stands. The Bannock County Historical Museum spotlights the town's railroading past and includes Shoshone and Bannock handicrafts.

Massacre Rocks; Massacre Rocks State Park, 10 miles southwest of American Falls, recalls a fatal day in 1862 when 10 Oregon Trail travelers were ambushed by a band of Indians. Thousands of other emigrants passed uneventfully through this break in the lava rocks, carving deep wagon ruts that created rolling swells still visible for miles. The parks offers boating and fishing on the Snake River, and plenty of birds to be watched.

City Of Rocks National Reserve; as California-bound emigrants branched from the main Oregon Trail, their wagons traversed a black sage desert, featureless for miles. Visual relief came in the form of massive granite outcroppings, some as tall as 60 stories, resembling a silent city. The usual emigrant reaction to such prominence along the trail was to carve messages in the rock. This granite proved too hard, so the inventive travelers smeared their inscriptions with axle grease instead.

Twin Falls; located amid lush croplands that were covered with sagebrush before irrigation made the Magic Valley green, Twin Falls is named for a waterfall on the Snake River that boiled around a large rock outcropping. Now the Snake is used for irrigation and hydroelectricity, and the twin falls usually appear only in the city's name.

Hagerman; Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument; spreads for several miles along the steep cliffs of the Snake River and contains one of the world's best assemblages of fossils from the Pliocene epoch. Most famous among the fossils, which include fish and small mammal bones, are the 130 horse fossils discovered in the "horse quarry." A prehistoric horse skeleton dug up here is displayed at the Hagerman Valley Historical Society Museum.

Bruneau Dunes; mammoth sand dunes at Bruneau Dunes State Park included the largest single structured sand dune in North America, towering 470 feet high. A five-mile self-guided nature trial climbs the dune and explains the area's geology. Three pretty lakes afford fishing.

Snake River Birds of Prey Area; the largest concentration of breeding raptors in North America inhabits the volcanic cliffs along 81 miles of the Snake River in the Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. Travel and Visit The Panhandle of Idaho.