My impressions of Idaho began long before this trip — a quick train ride years ago, a drive across the southern edge of the state, and a general sense that Idaho looked a lot like its neighbors. And in many ways, that still feels true. Much of southern Idaho blends visually with eastern Washington and western Montana: scrubby trees, dry land grasses, sagebrush, bitterroot, and the occasional rock outcropping. Dust storms rise out of nowhere. The wind never seems to take a day off. Cattle graze across wide, open spaces, and ever so often you pass a meat processor like West Beef with a feed yard right across the road — no long commute required.
What surprised me most on this trip wasn’t the landscape, but the irrigation. In the High Plains, I was used to center‑pivot systems pulling from deep underground aquifers. Idaho doesn’t have that luxury. Out there, anything you grow must be irrigated. Without water, the land simply won’t grow crops.
When settlers first arrived, the Snake River was their only reliable water source. In the early 1900s, after the 1902 Reclamation Act, the federal government began building dams and reservoirs along the Snake. Projects like the Minidoka Dam, started in 1904, transformed the Snake River Plain from desert into farmland.
I skipped Sun Valley. It struck me as a cross between Vail and Aspen, and I’ve spent enough time in both to know the vibe. Since I’m not a skier, the appeal wasn’t strong enough to justify the gas money. I’d rather spend my time — and my fuel — on places that aren’t replicas of things I’ve already done.
Idaho, at first glance, may look like its neighbors. But the more time I spend there, the more I realize that the story of this state isn’t in the mountains or the sagebrush. It’s in the water — where it comes from, how it’s moved, and how it shapes everything that grows. I did take a quick trip down to Idaho Falls, where the Shoshone Falls exist. When I got there, I saw there was water aplenty.
While I had technically been to all 50 states by 2016, there were two I’d never actually slept in: Idaho and Delaware. Idaho had always been a place I passed through — on the train, or in the car with my friend, Cindy, on the way to Seattle — but never a place I explored. That changed on June 12th. I can now officially check Idaho off the “slept in” list. And yes, I celebrated with a baked potato in my little RV air fryer, the one Cindy talked me into buying by feeding me baked potatoes until I caved. Worth it.
I was staying in Arco, Idaho — close to Craters of the Moon National Monument and within reach of several other places I wanted to visit. I’ve always had a habit of not researching destinations ahead of time. I like to let a place teach me what it wants me to know. Part of that comes from traveling before the internet, and part of it comes from watching people arrive somewhere already over‑informed and underwhelmed. I’d rather be surprised. And Craters of the Moon surprised me.
I’d seen a quick post before I arrived that described it as “just a bunch of black rock,” so I walked in with low expectations. And yes — it is a lot of black rock. But it’s also a geologist’s wonderland, a place where lava, soil, trees, and time have collided in every possible combination.
What struck me first was the texture of the landscape. Some of the rock looks like it was bulldozed into piles, but it’s actually basalt — frozen lava that cooled into jagged, broken forms. The cinder fields are so loose and sharp that almost nothing can grow in them. And yet, somehow, things do.
The vegetation there fascinated me. The fir trees clinging to the slopes. The bitterroot plants with their pale, almost white leaves. Those leaves aren’t a quirk — they’re a survival strategy. The black basalt can reach 150 degrees on summer afternoons, and the white leaves reflect sunlight to keep the plant from cooking itself. Even the concrete paths the Park Service poured are tinted with cinders, and they were warm through my hiking shoes on an 80‑degree day. This is still high desert — very little water, very little soil, and a whole lot of heat. And yet the plants have adapted in ways that feel almost defiant. They’ve carved out life in a place that looks, at first glance, like it shouldn’t support any.
Craters of the Moon is far more than “a bunch of black rock.” It’s a story of resilience — how nature overcomes adversity, how life finds a foothold in the harshest conditions, and how a landscape that looks barren at a distance reveals its beauty when you slow down and pay attention.
