Three Island Crossing State Park

 We met up with my parents for our last camping trip, just as summer was officially ending.  We kept it local, and we met up at Three Island Crossing State Park, in Southern Idaho.  It was mostly a time of relaxing and enjoying family time.  But we did get a chance to see some of the fascinating history of the area.

For those who aren't aware, Three Island Crossing is exactly what it sounds like.  There are three islands, like stepping stones, across the Snake River and it was an important site on the Oregon Trail.  It was at this point that the Oregon Trail split.  A successful river crossing meant a somewhat easier trip across the rest of Idaho.  There was more water, vegetation for livestock, and the chance to stop by Fort Boise.  You just had to successfully ford the river.  If a group didn't want to risk the crossing, the Southern alternative became their route.  This was not the favored option as there was less water and it was known to be the tougher of the two routes.

There is a really good overlook to the South of the campground you can drive to, and get a great birds eye view of the land.  The wagons would start out with the first ford and cross the length of the first island.  You can still see and visualize impressions running across the center of the first island, left by the multitudes of wagons.

The wagons would bypass the third island, cutting directly across the remainder of the Snake River Channel.  Upon reaching the bank their fanned out in a wide arc heading to the North-west.  While this area is farmland now, you can still see evidence of the trail from this vantage point up above.  The immense number of wagons compressed the ground so much and left depressions known as swales.  The darker terrain are these swales.  It does require some imagination and looking for the little details, but as Amber and I have traveled to a lot of these historical sites it does get a bit easier.

As we were leaving the overlook we did stop for a few minutes where the road intersects the Oregon Trail.  Just some simple white markers and swales denote its presence.  We walked along the wagon depressions for a bit, just imagining the hundreds of thousands of people who walked and struggled along this very path for months on end.  Here we are able to cover that same distance in mere hours.  It's very fascinating and humbling to think about.