Idaho hiking: Malad gorge

The name was granted after sickening early explorers in the 1800’s.

“Mackenzie’s group of trappers became ill after eating beaver meat while camped on the banks of the river that Mackenzie named “Malad” — meaning “sick” in French.

In his “Reminiscences of Early Days Volume II,” pioneer author Charles Walgamott claims the beaver in the Malad River had gained a solid reputation for sickening trappers.

Alexander Ross and his men had an experience similar to Mackenzie’s in 1824, and assumed the beaver had been dining on the roots of some poisonous plant growing along the stream. Ross named the stream “Riviere Malades,” said Walgamott. John Work also noticed dead fish in the stream in 1830, and he named it “Sickly River.”

Walgamott, who came to Idaho from Iowa in 1875, speculated that it was the root of the poisonous water hemlock that the beaver were eating that was sickening those who ate the meat.

The Malad River starts near Gooding, where the Big Wood River and the Little Wood River converge. From there, it travels 12 miles to the Snake River near Hagerman. The Malad River Gorge is 250 feet deep and nearly three miles long.”