Black Magic in Idaho

The night before, I had pulled off the highway to a pitch black landscape under a bright starry sky. I was in for a surprise when I looked out the camper that morning. As I pulled the shade, the morning sun reflected off a sturdy crust of icy snow with a vengeance for my corneas. I had parked in an expansive meadow with timber climbing the ridges on either side.

After making coffee, I glanced out again and could see that I had parked in a popular cross-country ski area. The lot was filling up quickly, so I tidied up the camper, fired up my rig, and got headed down the highway, southbound with the sun warming my face as it danced between rocky ridgelines. My destination was a place where the rock was shaped as if carved by a sculptor, Black Magic Canyon. After driving south through Ketchum, I pulled into the small lot off the highway and started up the trail a minute later.

Following a path through the sagebrush, I soon dropped down into a creek bed made of gray-black basalt. 10,000 years ago, Black Butte, a mile and a half away, erupted. Its lava pushed its way out and spread out for over 30 miles. Now I was descending into the canyon, it became a dark ribbon of varying depth. It began on the surface, but as I went along, the walls rose dozens of feet overhead, drawing me into the earth.

The rock undulated under my feet at points, as if it was as soft as shifting sand in a creek bed. The water had shaped the basalt over millennia, much of it smooth, some curves leading into sharp edges where the water must've leapt off further downstream.

Certain parts of the canyon had bands of blue, red, and yellow. Algae residue or mineral deposits from when the river is flowing, I couldn't tell which. Elsewhere, lichen dotted the black walls in whites, yellows, greens, and oranges. The colors of spring even though winter wasn't done yet, kismet timing for a visit.

The riverbed was dry under my feet for most of the way. These days, the Big Wood River only runs seasonally, the state releases water from April-October, so the canyon needs to be explored during the shoulder seasons.

There were pools of water in the rock in many places, as well as a few large silty pools that I had to work my way around as I made my way downstream. After the largest pool, I could see that the canyon split, dropping down on the left and holding a high shallow shelf on the right. I took the high side to check out an old bridge up ahead. Above the canyon, an old equipment yard sat on one side, full of slumbering iron machines. Beyond that, sagebrush stretched for miles all around, the highway cutting through it north to south.

Old dry moss radiated out across many of the round protrusions that the water had carved like the branches of a tree, bleached in the sun. I climbed over the rough terrain in my trusty half-cabs and ducked under the bridge. The concrete was old but solid. On the other side, foundations for a much older bridge came into view, composed of gritty concrete. That infrastructure was more my style: old and worn leftover parts of the West.

bridge foundations

Those foundations had begun to crumble long ago. Lichen dotted the surface, and there were a few chunks missing already. I walked around for a few minutes searching for clues. I hoped to find something else, some other sign of people from long ago. I wondered how many people actually stop at this little-known canyon on the way to Sun Valley.

After a few minutes, I did find an old rusted can in some sagebrush. Old cans turn up everywhere around western settlements: desert, mountains, anywhere people stopped long enough to eat. People were eating canned food of all sorts after the Civil War. This canned diet commonly included oysters, peaches, tomatoes, and condensed milk.

Other than the can, there was an old fence post along with a square hole in some concrete in the ground where it had stood. Someone had likely hauled that concrete out here and mixed it by hand. Only time knew how long ago. I was curious about that person, and about when the bridge had been built, the very day it was finished, and what the world was like then.

I doubled back to where the canyon split and dropped onto the low side. A narrow slot led downward, so I braced my arms and scooted my way through the gap, down to the next level a few feet below, then again, and again. Soon enough, I was fifteen feet or so down, walking on the gravel bottom. The walls above me looked like black shining curtains in the morning sun, the rock folding along the sides of the canyon.

In places, the curves went nearly 360 degrees, creating a cocoon-like alcove where you could almost sit with your whole body inside. In other places, perfectly melded holes curved downward into the rock, making deep bowls. As I continued down the canyon, it dropped farther, before I came to more big shelves. The gaps here were narrow, and I only made it through the first one before deciding to turn around.

At that moment, I looked down ahead of me. The canyon got deeper and darker, its floor becoming deep wells of basalt. Just below my feet, the first well dropped more than a dozen feet. Like the rest of the basalt, its walls were smooth. If you were to fall down into one, the only way out would be a ladder or a rope. I had neither, nor anyone with me. Deciding the southern mystery of the canyon would remain for now at least, I leaned there on the rock for a few moments and took it in.

keyhole in the basalt

The riverbed of the Big Wood River is unlike any I'd ever seen, though to be fair, not many riverbeds are as dry as that one. Gazing down into the canyon's depths, I wished my canyoneering friends were with me so we could drop in and continue down the canyon to see where it ends.

Exploring Black Magic Canyon that day had been a treat, a beautiful sunny morning in early springtime. The canyon was quiet; I only saw one other group over a couple of hours. The polished raven walls are different from anything else in the West, making it a perfect stop when you're passing through.