Shoshone Falls:  Niagara of the West  

What emotions arise for you upon visiting a scenic waterfall from a sight, smell, and sound perspective? 

“No country in the world could produce a location where beauty, grandeur and power so artistically and profusely intermixed.” (Charles Walgamott, 1875)

We weren’t planning anything special when we left Boise last Thursday. It was just another open stretch of open road, another road trip day unfolding without much expectation. But we needed a break from our seven hour drive to Park City, Utah, so visiting  Shoshone Falls came up suddenly as a sidetrack place to eat our lunch hopefully overlooking the waterfall. Exiting at the Twin Falls,Idaho exit, our alternate route took us to a steep descent from the Shoshone canyon entrance a few miles outside of town. 

With visions of previous visits to mighty Niagara Falls then entering my mind, suddenly there it was—the wide crashing sounds and sights of falling water filling my nostrils with freshly cooled air with the sounds of  a deep steady roar. Like Niagara, its rim at over 200 feet deep and 900 feet wide immediately felt too overwhelming to fully take in at first glance. 

So I found several vantage points of the overlook and surrounding environs from different angles to take photos in silence as I savored the calming effect of water movement plunging steadily into the deep canyon  below. Those moments, had nothing to do with feeding my busy mind about geological details of this experience. For I was simply staying in the present moment to appreciate being in this memorable place combining natural beauty and gravity’s power then and that was enough.