I usually don't write a lot about cities we visit but Twin falls is different as many of you westerners probably know.
We entered Twin Falls on Rt 93, crossing the Snake River gorge on 'the bridge'. The bridge is 1500 feet long and 500 feet, about 50 stories, above the river. The bridge has four lanes and sidewalks. The sidewalks are principally used by para-sailers. We saw two of them climb over the side walk's railing, jump and spiral down to a landing site, marked by an American flag at the bottom of the gorge. You can see a tourquoise parachute in the third picture, as well as the head of the second jumper. When they begin their initial free
fall there's a strange parental feeling that comes over me.
There are two major falls up stream of the bridge Shoshonee and Twin Falls. The third picture is of Shoshonee. Please realize this picture is at low flow, still wonderful to us, but I understand the spring flow is striking.
Today we drove west on the river to the town of Haggerman to the famous fossil field where the Haggerman horse fossils were found. The drive was as interesting as the fossils, thru farm country, seemingly endless wheat, alfalfa and corn fields, well watered by the Snake River and other water sources. It gives me great pleasure to see the nation's producers.
On our return we passed 1000 Springs. These are springs that just pop out of the north wall of the Gorge creating a water viel that seems miles long. Truly beautiful and worth the trip.
This gorge was mostly created by the great Bonneville flood, about 14,000 years ago. Lake Bonneville was 150 miles wide and 350 miles long, about half the size of Arizona.
The natural rock dam holding Lake Bonneville at Red Rock Utah failed and the resulting flood released 25 million cubic feet of water per second that flowed into the Snake River for 6-8 weeks, draining the lake in that time period, the present Great Salt Lake is all that remains of Lake Bonneville.
When the flood passed Twin Falls, the water overflowed the tops of the gorge and was moving at nearly 50 mph, carrying huge boulders and gouging out the canyon to new depths and widths, increasing it's size by a factor of 7.
The pre-flood depth was near the bridge's present canyon wall arch footing.
We have only spent two days here, a week probably wouldn't be enough. There are all kinds of things to do here, raft trips, kayaking, hiking,.... finding this was a gem, not to mention the bag of obsidian stones, to two unsuspecting souls from NH.
Off to Neveda in the morning
1978 Trillium 1300
1979 Trillium 4500
Biggerfidg
Yea....Thanks Norm!
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