Travel Stage: After leaving Grand Teton/Jackson, WY
Date Range: July 30 – August 9, 2016
Summary: We won a contest with a company we work with for an all-expenses paid trip to Idaho Falls. We spent a fun-filled week flying, exploring, splunking, and whitewater rafting!
Date Range: July 30 – August 9, 2016
Summary: We won a contest with a company we work with for an all-expenses paid trip to Idaho Falls. We spent a fun-filled week flying, exploring, splunking, and whitewater rafting!
We are authorized dealers for Andersen Hitches who makes the special kind of fifth wheel hitch we tow our home on wheels with. It is called the Ultimate Fifth Wheel Connection, and if you’re interested about it feel free to check it out on our dealer website, Morton Trailer Supply.
Andersen Hitches is headquartered in Idaho Falls, and since we were going to be going right by there in between the Tetons and Western Montana we figured we should stop in, tour the place, and meet the folks that we’d been dealing with over the phone and email at the manufacturing plant.
A few weeks prior to us being there, our factory rep held a contest among his dealers for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip out to Idaho Falls to tour the factory and checkout the nearby attractions including Yellowstone, Tetons, whitewater rafting, airplane rides, horseback riding, ice caves, and more. We entered the contest and won!
Getting There
From Jackson Hole we avoided the Teton Pass and swung wide down through the cute little town of Alpine and along the Palisades river. We pulled off onto the mud flats where we saw lots of other campers boondocking for the weekend and spent a beautiful night on the water (along the mud near the water was really mucky, so the dogs and we stayed out of the water.)
Idaho falls
Our factory rep covered our campground fees for the week (which saved them a lot in plane tickets and hotel rooms, let me tell ya!) at Snake River RV Park. Idaho Falls is named for the waterfall in the middle of town that is used to generate hydroelectric power. It has been modified from its natural state, but it still makes for a lovely riverfront park for a few miles on either side of the river.
Airplane Ride
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Our factory rep had access to a small plane and happened to be a pilot and flight instructor. He took us for an afternoon cruise over the back side of the Teton Mountain range!
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It was gorgeous and exhilarating to see the snowy peaks and turquoise alpine lakes from above.
Sand Dunes & Ice Caves
Tom and I opted to explore a new curiosity while we were here and under our factory rep’s wing: ice caves. We hardly believed him when he told us there were ice caves near Idaho Falls. It was hot summertime and if you’ve never been to the Idaho Falls area…it’s pretty hot, dry, and flat. Sage prairie dominates the massive amounts of BLM land that sprawl in every direction.
Our factory rep, whose name was Sage, drove us. He brought his three kids along with him too when we said we didn’t mind at all. The drive to this local treasure was off the beaten trail a few hours. On the way we stopped at the Sand Mountain Wilderness Study Area to marvel at yet another seemingly random geological feature.
Dune buggies tore up the dunes that went for many miles. Tom got the drone out to chase them!
Another while down the road, we turned off the road onto a two track that twisted and turned off into the sagebrush. We had turned onto BLM land that was used for cattle ranching, though no cattle or ranchers were to be seen. Nothing was really to be seen. We started to think that Sage had been kidding about the ice caves.
After a good 30 minutes of really rough, rocky, slow driving, Sage proclaimed that we were there.
We got out our winter gloves, hats, and flashlights, and followed Sage and his 3 kids down into a rocky pit. Sage explained that the pit was in fact a collapsed lava tube – a cylindrical cavern through which lava had flown eons ago. These tubes snake all across Idaho.
Think about it: just a couple hundred miles to the northeast is Yellowstone, which is a giant underground volcano. Just a hundred or so miles to the south west is the Craters of the Moon National Monument which is all volcanic as well. Looking at the sage brush prairie is another clue – nothing else can really grow well in the rocky ground. Volcanic rocks were what made our drive out to this place so rough and they could be seen jutting out here and there.
Tom put his drone up to get a better look at the (collapsed) lava tubes.
Sure enough, at the bottom of the rocky pit was the short entrance to a cave, and ice coated the floor. The entrance was only about 2ft tall, so we had to lay on our bellies and swallow our claustrophia to pull ourselves into the cave.
Once inside a couple dozen feet, the cave opened up to where we could stand, and the reality of the place sunk in!
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Lava rock is very porous, and so makes an excellent insulator. Ice not only cover the floor, but ice crystals clung to the walls in a dazzling blanket of sparkles.
The cave/lava tube continued, and we slid, climbed, and carefully navigated the ice through numerous passageways and larger “rooms” that seemed to go on forever. Besides our flashlights it was pitch black in the cave, the kind where you can’t see your hand in front of your face!
Whitewater Rafting the Snake River
Our last paid-for excursion was a whitewater rafting trip on the Snake River. We ended up going back to Jackson Hole and taking a Mad River boat for a very early morning trip. The air was cool and the water was cold, but it was a blast! Tom, Sage, and I got in a boat with a Indian family on vacation who was very competitive and humorous which made for some good fun by all.
Morton Trailer Supply
For the rest of our stay we used the opportunity to photography and video many of Andersen’s products so that we could expand our dealership business with them. Up until then we had focused on selling the Ultimate Fifth-Wheel Connection that we used. After meeting with the folks at Andersen and getting to handled some more of the high-quality, made-in-America products, we decided to expand and launch a whole new website selling most of their product line!
Check out the website here: Morton Trailer Supply
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