Hagerman, Idaho (KMVT-TV) If you are looking for a destination in southern Idaho that can offer you just about anything you would want to do this summer, the town of Hagerman would be a great place to start.

“Hagerman Valley is just full it’s well worth your time, to come down here. I would take a family for a trip through here, have lunch go to the hot tubs, go fishing, ” said Pete Weir, Mayor of Hagerman
“Besides that we have wonderful museum down the road, which is sitting in a wonderful historical building, the old post office 1800 late 1800s early 1900s.“

You can also spend some time on the water. There are numerous points along the Snake River where you can put a raft in the water or you can book a boat cruise and have dinner on the river.

Most of us know Hagerman for the Fossil Beds National Monument

Annette Rousseau, Education Specialist, Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument

“You get to see fossils up close here in the visitor center, fossils that are world famous, we literally are a world famous park for our fossils because of the amount that we find and the variety that we find, and it’s right in your back yard and you can come and see them up close,” said Annette Rousseau, Education Specialist, Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument

Before you drive out on the monument and take a tour of the park, you should first stop by and check out the visitor center

“We can give you all the latest information, the map; you can spend some time in our discovery center, open drawers, look at things, dig for fossils. You can also go see our DVD which is nice because it gives you a good overview of the park and tells you what we’re doing with Fossils here. You know how they get here; a lot of people don’t understand why there are fossils here in Idaho.”

They find over three thousand fossils a year, so even though you may have visited the fossil beds before their exhibits are always changing

Rousseau points out, “Oh you should definitely come and see because we’ve just redone all of our exhibits. We’ve put out a whole bunch of species that we’ve not had on display before. So now they can come out and see things like we’ve got the bear, the bone crushing dog, we’ve added more horse fossils to it and expanded our camel fossil exhibit also. So we have a wide variety of fossils that most people haven’t seen before.”

There are two ways to get to Hagerman, your typical interstate or you can take the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway, then it becomes its own attraction.

Driving through the Snake River canyon on US highway 30 you can stop and watch the natural springs flow down the canyon walls into the river, or if you need to relax, you can check out many of the natural hot spring locations and resorts.