Saturday, April 2, 2011

Black Magic Canyon

During spring break,
we went to check out Black Magic Canyon just north of Shoshone, Idaho.
It can only be explored during certain times of the year
as it serves as an irrigation canal in the spring and summer. 

This is Justin, Deanne, and Erika at the observation point.

Looking down into the canyon.

It didn't take the kids long to scramble down into it.




We drove to another section of the canyon to explore further. 
This is Deanne and Megan at the mouth of the canyon.

This section was a lot deeper.

And had a lot of cool rock formations...




There was still some snow in parts of the canyon.

In some places, the walls were pretty narrow.

And in others, wide open.

Shane and the kids stopped to find a geocache up along the ledge.

Shane and Erika

Heading back the way we came.




Wild Cat Canyon

On the last day of spring break,
we drove south past Marsing, Idaho to explore Wild Cat Canyon.

Here is the troop at the mouth of the canyon.

As it turned out, there was no trail leading up this canyon,
so we forged our way up the dry stream bed and through sage brush.

Justin and Megan (in back) and Deanne posing on the rocks.

The kids loved scrambling up the boulders. 
Deanne had a great time too, but required a lot more help than the rest.



Stopping for a snack break.

A view looking back down the canyon.

Garrett climbing up the rock wall. 

The dry creek bed turned wet adding to the fun.

There were several larger but shallow pools of water
where we threw rocks down and hopped across.

And then we were stumped by a couple of deeper pools...

But, we found a way up and around them.

Here's another deep one that we had to skirt.

The highlight of the trip for Megan was catching this frog. 

This was our turning point. 
The canyon went on for several more miles,
but Deanne was getting rather heavy
and we knew we had several challenging obstacles
to climb down on the way out.

Garrett looks disappointed as we head back down the mountain.


The kids thought those holes in the rocks looked like nostrils.

What do you think?

This is near the bottom of the canyon. 
We finally caught up with this band of wildcats (Erika, Justin and Garrett)
who had been racing to the bottom of the canyon.

Funny how we did most of the work,
yet Deanne kept stopping to rest  cuz she was tired.

But, all's well that ends well!
Although several of us had wet shoes
and  ticks crawling around on our bodies,
no one got hurt and it was a great way to end spring break.