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Begin your virtual tour of Caribou County by clicking on any of the above entry points,
and follow roads or trails through a network of linked images.
Caribou County covers 1,766 square miles in southeastern Idaho, bordered by Wyoming on the east. 150 years ago, emigrants traveling to the west coast passed through it's valleys on the Oregon Trail. The "Oasis of Soda Springs" was an important landmark on the trail and became Idaho's second oldest settlement. Coming from Bear Lake Valley to the south, following the Bear River, the trail passed Soda Springs where it bent westward, passing through a gap in the mountains, into Gem Valley. Here the Bear River turns sharply south toward the Great Salt Lake, while the trail headed northwest across the valley and into the Snake River Basin.
Groves of Aspen and evergreen trees dominate the high mountains, watered by the heavy snows of winter. The lower slopes are sparsely forested with Junipers and other small trees and bushes, which give way to sagebrush and grasses on the foothills. Rocky outcroppings are common between the trees. The flat valley floors, coupled with irrigation water from the Bear River provide for agriculture.
The 2000 census reported 7,304 people living in Caribou County, mostly in Grace and Soda Springs.
While the mountains here were formed by being uplifted, the valley floors were formed by lava flows. All of Gem valley and the area around and north of Soda Springs sit on lava flows.
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