There's Something About the Arco Desert

Day 4 of my 600 miles road trip my afternoon was spent driving across the Arco Desert past Craters of the Moon National Monument south towards Carey, Idaho. The Arco Desert in my humble view is that stretch of road near Craters all the way to Carey and southerly towards Minidoka and Shoshone. The heart of the area is crossed by Goodales Cutoff, a spur of the various Oregon Trails and wagon train routes. Goodales came across more or less from Ft Hall, cut through some nasty lava rock areas with narrow wagon tracks, and heded toward Mountain Home cutting over toward Boise at a place called Bonneville Point. There are many variations on the theme. Those travelers had to be tough as nails to do this. The most successful didn't go by wagon but rather went by horseback The easier routes were those that went near Cauldron Linn but stayed north of the Snake River rather than crossing there, or else they crossed at Glenns Ferry.