| When
Dennis Weaver saw the new sign, his heart sank: "Sheep
Falls-4 Miles." His favorite picnic spot, one of
the most scenic places in eastern Idaho, had been discovered.
Would the road be thronged with SUVs? Would the falls
be crowded with campers and picnickers? Dennis headed
down the little dirt track with trepidation, and came
back with this report. |
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Sheep
Falls on the Falls River |
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A
giant boulder we crawled under on hands and knees
to get to a ledge that runs along the water's
edge. |
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A
snag caught in the falls for two years |
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[Map]
[If
You Go]
"There will be a ton of people down there."
That was our concerned response to the new sign
on Cave Falls Road. It pointed down the side road, right to
one of our favorite out-of-the-way spots: "Sheep Falls
-- 4 miles." One of the most scenic places in eastern
Idaho had been discovered. We pictured congestion on the single-track
road and four-wheel-drives littered around the edges of the
falls.
Most people don't even know that there is a southwest
entrance to Yellowstone National Park. Because the road dead-ends
in the park instead of connecting to the park's arteries,
and because the access road, Cave Falls Road, is a long gravel
stretch, few people take the drive. The locals go there, though.
It has great camping spots and no crowds, so a few families
make it a weekend destination. Hikers and horseback riders
make it a jumping-off spot for remote trips into the park's
backcountry. My 20-year-old son Ben tells of riding a horse
deep into the park, how he found a herd of buffalo and rode
right through them and how they never became alarmed.
This day we had driven up the Cave Falls Road,
not to go to the park but to Sheep Falls. There's a more popular
Sheep Falls, the Sheep Falls on Henry's Fork of the Snake
River. Ordinarily, the Sheep Falls on the Falls River is seldom
visited. But now we were concerned. With a sign pointing the
way, anyone could find it. All they had to do was drive to
Ashton on State Highway 20, the road leading to West Yellowstone,
make a right turn where the sign says "Mesa
Scenic Byway," (Idaho State Highway 47) and another
right turn on Cave Falls Road, (County road 582). The Sheep
Falls sign would tell them where to turn off.
The road
The road to Sheep Falls is unimproved. For the
first two miles, the road is very good for a dirt road. It
might be a one-lane road but it is smooth with few rocks,
so even a passenger car can navigate it.
Anxious to see who would be there, we drove the
good stretch of road at 25 miles per hour. After a mile or
so, we crossed a little creek on a quaint bridge and then
took the second turnoff to the left. If we were driving cars
instead of four-wheel-drive vehicles, we would have parked
at this second intersection and walked the last mile and a
half. Maybe we would have brought our mountain bikes and peddled
to the river.
After the turnoff the road gets rough, becoming
a rocky track barely wide enough for a pickup. It twists through
the rocks and trees, eventually dropping off a lava edge into
the river canyon. Merri Ann and I were in a Nissan Xterra
and Ben and his wife, Debbie, and their two little girls were
in a Toyota FJ Cruiser. As long as we picked our way carefully
and took our time, we wouldn't have any trouble.
Immediately, the little road skirts a bank of
willows. We'll often spot a moose in the willows but not today.
Where the road makes a right, it cuts through the willows.
Early in the summer, there is enough water in the willows
to create a nasty-looking bog hole, but in July, the mudhole
is dry, leaving a boneyard of rugged rocks. When water and
mud cover the rocks, it's an intimidating hole and people
sometimes turn around. They don't need to. With all those
rocks in the bottom, they can ease through the mire with no
chance of getting stuck.
This is volcanic country. Much of Yellowstone
National Park and this corner of Idaho is a giant caldera.
The rivers, and the little road that we were on, wander across
the plateau formed by the caldera. Over time, the rivers cut
canyons in the caldera and spill over falls at the caldera's
edge. The Falls River is typical. It has cut a remote canyon
through the lava rock and spills over several falls on its
way to the agricultural lands in the Snake River Valley.
The little road crosses the flat, winding through
tall pines and dodging giant lava boulders, some the size
of a pickup. Where the summer sun breaks through the trees,
the ground is covered with mountain sunflowers, splashes of
gold against leathery-green leaves. In the cooler shadows
are banks of pink, white and lavender flowers.
It was easy driving here, just picking through
the rocks. Where the road drops into the canyon, as it falls
from one lava ledge to the next, it is rougher. We locked
our drivetrains into four-wheel drive and shifted down to
low range. We knew we wouldn't get stuck, but it was a slow
creep down through the rocks and the higher clearance of the
SUVs was necessary.
Once, where dirt collected in the ruts, we stopped
the car and got out to look for fresh animal tracks. This
is wildlife country but it was too hot and most of the animals
were hidden in the shade, deep in the pines where the air
was cooler. Wolves and bears keep the game populations down.
Still, we watched for elk and deer.
We talked about how, earlier in the summer, we
had watched a cougar chase a deer across a little dirt road
like this. The cougar knew that the deer would not run straight
for long and cut to the right to intercept the deer if it
turned that direction. Instead, the deer turned left and escaped.
Continued
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