Living Above the Geoid: Places most people have likely never considered going: Boise, Idaho

When one considers vacation destinations, Idaho is generally not on the list. Other than skiers visiting Sun Valley, I'd wager that not many people visit Idaho, or even really know much about it (other than potatoes). Mrs. Geology and I had decided to take a long weekend somewhere over Valentine's Day, so we started looking around. We were originally looking at Chicago, but hotel prices for the weekend were jacked up in expectation of people like us wanting to come on a holiday. Looking at the map of where Southwest flies from Denver, we settled, kind of on a whim, on Boise, Idaho. When we started actually looking into it, Boise turned out to be pretty cool: over 100 miles of singletrack right out of town, a bunch of interesting sounding restaurants, and a few museums. This was good enough for us, so we booked the trip.

Last Thursday night we got on a plane and ended up in Boise. The next morning, we (casually) headed to the Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey. Many of you might not know, but I really like raptors, especially falcons. The Center had a lot of those, which was pretty cool. They have a decent number of live birds, including a few California Condors, which are huge.

Large birds.

My favorite was the Gyrfalcon, even though he was behind sad bars. The reason the bird is in captivity is because it was impressed by some human falconer at birth (most birds on display at the Center are in this situation). It basically wouldn't be able to survive in the wild. They are really cool, though.

Gyrfalcon. Native to the Canadian Arctic, where I have actually seen them.

The next day we went to the zoo, and walked around the Boise River Greenbelt for a while. At the zoo, we saw a lot of fuzzy things.

Snow Leopard... fuzzy!!!

Red Fox... FUZZY!!!

Zoos are always a little bit sad, but seeing predators in a setting where they aren't trying to eat you is always nice. The snow leopard was funny because it was just lying in the sun away from the glass until a toddler waddled up to the glass and leaned up against it. The leopard casually got up and walked right up to the glass and stared at the kid. I'm pretty sure he thought the kid would make a nice snack. The leopard quickly got distracted by some geese that were alighting on nearby rooftops and making a lot of noise. He prowled for a while until the geese flew away. It's a shame that there was some netting on the top of the leopards enclosure; I would have loved to see a goose land in the enclosure with the leopard. I'm sure it would not have been nice for the kids, though.

Sunday we decided to take a hike and explore some of the trails around Boise. I cannot say how, unfortunately, disappointed I was by these. We didn't hike very far, but from the research I've done and what I experienced, the good trails don't exist until you get much higher up in the mountains, and even the good trails are very smooth (like leave your suspension at home smooth). I do want to step back a little here, though: I would love for someone to prove me wrong. I really, really want to find some rad, technical trails outside of Boise, and I really, really want someone to show them to me. Most of this disappointment likely comes from my personal biases (something I'm going to write about in a few days), but I was still sad. Sad enough that I didn't take any pictures.

The next day we did a little driving tour of the Snake River area, which was much cooler. The Snake River Canyon, where the Snake River cuts through many layers of basalts associated with the Columbia River Flood Basalt province, was a sight to behold.

Snake River Canyon.

Also the Snake River Canyon.

Mrs. Geology and I had a good time exploring the basalt boulder fields in a nearby park. It's definitely a unique area with interesting geology. I'll leave you with a few more pictures. Look for another post this week on trail stuff.