Road to Idaho Falls and a hike up Menan Butte…

Since we were close to Idaho Falls, Idaho and because we had heard good things about the town we made a road trip over to check it out. Idaho Falls is a fairly large town and we walked around the old downtown area to get a feel for it. The town has a good vibe, is energetic and very much alive unlike many other towns we have visited of this size.  A large part of its appeal may in part be due to the beautiful Snake River flowing through the middle of town.

The Falls in Idaho Falls are not natural as they are part of a larger hydroelectric project but they are very nice nonetheless. It is more like rapids than falls but enjoyable and scenic while strolling along the edge of the river. At the end of our walk we consulted our phone internet to see if there were any local Brewpubs in town and found the Idaho Brewing Company and Snow Eagle Brewing and Grill .  We visited both and found them to  be great little spots. Idaho Brewing had better beer in our opinion and the atmosphere won at Eagle Brewing…

Another day we took a hike up the Menan Buttes Trail two of the many volcanic cones that rise up from the Snake River Plain. This is quite a unique area because of how the Menan Buttes were formed. They are called tuff cones and were formed when magma erupted through water about 10,000 years ago and they became the only tuff cones that formed in fresh water in the entire USA! They are also among the largest in the world making this a fun and interesting hike.

This hike started off steep and remained that way until we reached the top. The hiking was somewhat tricky due to some areas of deep sand and other places were  loose sand made the rocks quite slippery. We had to watch our footing going up and even more so going down  because of the aforementioned slippery slope. There is one stretch where they have a chained area that offered us assistance in going up and down a pretty nasty steep slippery rocky area. Other than that the hike was fun and the views were fabulous.

The entire trail is 3.3 miles if you add in the walk all the way around the crater. The change in elevation is over 1200 feet. We didn’t walk all the way around the crater as the views from the south side and west sides were stunning… We could see far out and off to the north as the sage brush is seemingly endless. To the east we saw the town of Rexburg and all the buildings surrounding the town. To our south we saw all shapes of agricultural fields, green as they could be since irrigation was in full force. The rivers could be followed by sight for miles and miles. This was indeed a great hike and we would highly recommend it for anyone visiting this area.