Never knew this about Idaho, map of streams/rivers (Boise: 2015, moving)
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Being a geography nut, I devour maps almost as readily as ice cream. Ran across this one today. My eye was immediately drawn to the big hole in the eastern Snake River Valley. Must have been tough for the wagon trains during the pioneer days of western expansion. (By Nathan Yau of the U.S. Census Bureau by way of Wired.)
Bonus map, self explanatory but interesting. FWIW. (I love this stuff!)
Thanks for posting that Volo. Tried to rep you, but I guess I need to spread the love around some more.
Given your love of maps, are you familiar with Raven Maps? They make some very high quality maps. I have one of their world maps, and now that we're here would like to get their Idaho map.
Thanks for posting that Volo. Tried to rep you, but I guess I need to spread the love around some more.
Given your love of maps, are you familiar with Raven Maps? They make some very high quality maps. I have one of their world maps, and now that we're here would like to get their Idaho map.
Appreciate the kudos. Didn't know "Raven Maps" by name, but I think have the one of Idaho in digital form.
Isn't that "Big hole" (it looks like a chili pepper to me) a place where there aren't any water bodies at all? So in theory, that would be easier to cross.
Isn't that "Big hole" (it looks like a chili pepper to me) a place where there aren't any water bodies at all? So in theory, that would be easier to cross.
Yup. The big blank spot is right where the lavas are.
They are so rough as to be next to impossible to cross with a wagon. Naives and immigrants both avoided them, except as a place to hunt birds and game, but back then, the game could be found in much more hospitable places.
I thought that at first too, but it looks like a much larger expanse than I thought Craters of the Moon covered, even taking other flows into the mix as well. Looking at it, it goes pretty much from Twin Falls to Island Park, over a huge swath. Some of that is lava flow, but certainly not all.
But anyway, I misunderstood what you were saying. For some reason, I read your post that you thought it was a large body of water standing in the way of travelers.
I thought that at first too, but it looks like a much larger expanse than I thought Craters of the Moon covered, even taking other flows into the mix as well. Looking at it, it goes pretty much from Twin Falls to Island Park, over a huge swath. Some of that is lava flow, but certainly not all.
But anyway, I misunderstood what you were saying. For some reason, I read your post that you thought it was a large body of water standing in the way of travelers.
I agree. It looks like it's a lot larger area than the lava beds. That's a lot of territory to cross without water. Didn't wagons only go something like 12 or 20 miles a day? I'll have to check out a map of the Oregon Trail. It must have skirted that barren and dry area.
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Hmmph! Answered my own questions, but posted here just in case anybody cares.
1.) Wagon trains traveled between 10 and 15 miles a day.
2.) The Oregon Trail through that part of Idaho paralleled the Snake River.
3.) However, there was one 'shortcut' called "Goodale's Cutoff" that went from Fort Hall across the barren valley between the lava beds to the Lost River and Arco on north side of the Snake River Valley, then west toward Boise.
The thiing about the Great Arco Desert is most of it is passible, especially if one is on a horse. The problem is the entire area is criss-crossed with many natural obstructions of all kinds, like mile-deep canyons, rivers that flood in spring and disappear by mid June, and other stuff besides just the lava flows. They too are obstructive, as they tend to lie in long lines across what is otherwise open country. A pioneer could travel for days in a wagon, thinking the road was clear, until he ran into a lava finger, only to discover that he had to turn around and go back the way he came, as there was no way around the lava.
That's why all the major Oregon trail routes hug the Snake River to get around the desert in the west, and then follow the foothills around Boise to go over the Oregon border toward the Blue Mountains, which are an even greater obstacle. Once the Blues were crossed, it was all literally dowhhill from there for most of the way to the coast.
For the pioneers, every new big obstruction was more draining than the last. When a wagon is depending on a wheel that has already been broken 3 or 4 times, being pulled by a tired team of skinny oxen, every big bump in the road becomes bumpier by far. They had already had their full share of hard places and times before they every got this far westward.The Great Plains was no skate back then, and neither were the wilds of the Missouri Breaks and the other areas. By the time they got as far as Idaho, over half of them had already turned around and went back home.
It's important to remember that the pioneers were not the mountain men. They came from long civilized states, counties and localities that were settled and established. Moving west for them was what a move into into the Northwest Territories of Canada would be for us today; mostly unknown territory, risky, and uncertain in dozens of very unfamiliar ways. None which offered much comfort, either.
Goodale's Cutoff was a lot like the Donner Pass route into California- it wasn't open for as much of the year as other routes, so a party that got stuck or started too late had a miserable time of it in early winter.
It was passable, but barely so, and slower than the other westward routes. It's still the slowest route of all westward to Boise.
It did lead to some of the richest mining strikes in Idaho, though.
Last edited by banjomike; 10-21-2016 at 11:59 PM..
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