Milner BLM area with Oregon Trail Ruts in Idaho

June 1, 2, & 3rd, 2007.

We moved the motorhome 120-miles north to Burley/Heyburn, Idaho on the Snake River today. We are staying in Heyburn Riverside City RV-Park 679-8158 full hookups $21 in a very nice RV-Park located on the Snake River next to the Heyburn-Burley Chamber of Commerce Tourist Information Center and a city park (US-30 on the northeast side of the Snake River Bridge.)

Once we settled into the RV-Park we headed out in search of places where traces of the Oregon Trail could still be viewed. West of Burley (10-miles) is Milner BLM property where we went searching for tracks left by the old wagon trains. Getting there required traversing typical southern Idaho landscape on typical southern Idaho roads.

Gravel road to Milner BLM area with Oregon Trail Ruts in Idaho

This RR track is following the south side of the Snake River just like we are. Only at this point we need to get between the RR tracks and the river.

Lava rock near Snake River west of Burley, Idaho

This is the typical landscape. Lava rock litters the landscape like weeds.

This is the Snake River as it cuts a path through this extremely hard lava rock. The Oregon Trail passed by this very spot on the south side of the river.

Snake River cutting through lava rock west of Burley, Idaho

No doubt pioneers drew water at this site, stayed the night, listened to a fiddle or jew's harp by campfire light, and watched wearily as the sun rose in the east, signaling the start of another long day. The Milner area was a mild but welcome stop, with its mostly flat terrain and readily available water. Behind the pioneers was the "rocky, sagebrush desert," as one journal recorded; ahead lay "a seemingly endless sage plain."

But first a little history to orient you to the significance of the Oregon Trail and the part it played in American History and the opening of the West.

In the late 1830s, Great Britain was rumbling about its ownership of the Pacific Northwest. American leaders believed that an influx of settlers in the area would cement their claim to it.

At the same time, the United States was rocked by a depression. Money was tight, unemployment high, and the prospects for many lower and middle class people were dim.

In 1838, a former missionary to Oregon named Jason Lee toured eastern states extolling the virtues of the West. To a struggling people, his words seemed heaven-sent. In 1841, the first wagon train gathered in Independence, Missouri, the last settlement on the western frontier. Poorly organized, lacking leadership and a capable guide, most quickly became discouraged and turned back. Only about 30 of the original 500 eventually reached Oregon.

But they continued coming, year after year. Some of those travelers stayed in Idaho, becoming among the first pioneers in this state.

Through searing heat and powder-fine dust, walking against the sting of a steady west wind, enduring the horror of cholera, and facing the daily drudgery of walking across most of a continent a step at a time, tens of thousands of pioneers passed this way. They were carried as much by a vision as they were by creaky wagons and weary limbs--the dream of land to call their own and a new life.

Oregon Trail marker Milner BLM area with Oregon Trail Ruts in Idaho

The dusty Oregon Trail was the most famous route to California and Utah; short cuts and alternative pioneer routs webbed their way across southern Idaho. A dozen or more westward trails crisscrossed this area.

Only portions of the original trails remain intact. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), along with many other organizations and citizens, are working to mark and preserve the original trail route through much of southern Idaho. They never want the history and memory of this remarkable chapter in American history to be forgotten.

Across this sagebrush flat, tucked close to the Snake River, where two-track trails weave, are the last visible signs of a distinctly American saga. The Oregon Trail was the path that led westward for more than 300,000 emigrants between 1841 and 1869. After the transcontinental RR was completed they continued to come west but by RR.

That cement marker is maintained by the BLM so that people today can walk the same Oregon Trail so many pioneers trekked over.

The black rocks on each side of the trail are remnants of an ancient lava flow.

Markers trace the Oregon Trail across Milner BLM property west of Burley, Idaho

These markers are marking the old Oregon or Overland Trail through this section of southern Idaho.

Markers trace the Oregon Trail across Milner BLM property west of Burley, Idaho

Wagon ruts carved by thousands of wheels into soil and lava are much more than a mere road through the desert. What the West was in yesteryear and is today forever will be linked with the Oregon Trail.

Just walking along this trail gives us the feeling that we indeed are on the path of history.

How those brave, tough pioneers walked the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon is beyond my comprehension when we see this terrain.

Pay close attention to these pictures where you can see marker post after marker post strung out over this inhospitable terrain as markers of where the old trail used to be. Without these markers one would scarcely pay attention to the slight indention. One hundred and thirty years can heal old wounds it would seem to say.

Snake River cutting through extremely hard lava rock in southern Idaho

This is a good example of the lava rock that must be 100 feet or more deep in this area. The picture was taken from the south bank of the Snake River in the Milner area where wagon trains on the Oregon Trail would surely have stopped for the night with cool clear water available.

White Pelicans in the Snake River

White pelicans doing what pelicans do on the Snake River.

The large boulders you see on the far side of the Snake River are ancient Lava Rocks.

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