Fall is a busy season in Caribou County
A view from the back side of Pebble near Bancroft, as the leaves begin their inevitable change for the year.
It was a busy week in Caribou County, with the Fall Festival and Homecoming in Soda Springs coming in between Bancroft and North Gem’s Homecomings, the Spud Harvest, Fall sports season, and a number of other events.
There was an uptick in the number of people out “leaf peeping,” which is the phrase used by northeasterners to describe trying to catch the leaves in their ultimate moments of changing for the season. While many of the trees on the route from Lava to the bottom of Fish Creek have started their turn over the last week or two, the real fireworks should start soon. There have been some credible reports of excellent foliage up some of the nearby canyons.
The Fall Festival was held at the City Park in Soda Springs this year, and there were some changes to the proceedings. The City Park has become the default location for a range of activities, which this year included a biergarten hosted by Stockmans, live music throughout the afternoon, the final day of the library’s costume sale, food vendors, craft booths and other items, and a mid-day goldfish racing series. The idea came to Jessica Thurman in a dream—or at least a reel—and blossomed into a highly entertaining small track race course for goldfish that swam their ways down the PVC tracks. More than one was taken home as a prize, and another more than one was rehomed after the fact.
A neon night-time dance with DJ Eclipse brought groups of kids out again to dance the night away in the warm, but clearly growing more chill fall evening.
The weekend also marked the official end of the Spud Harvest, or at least the part that students get out of school for! While Gibbs, Jorgensen, and Stoddard Farms are the three largest names and locations on the Spud harvest maps, many producers in the Grace and Bancroft areas were able to take advantage of good weather and brisk sales over the course of the harvest.
You’ll notice in this edition the first rumblings of winter, as the Community Christmas Concert practice schedule is presented on page 2. While Christmas sounds much too far away to believe, the truth is that it’s already well on its way! Before then, we have a number of Halloween events in the near term, not to mention elections, more fall sports, and a lot more before fall makes its exit.
On this page are some of the images from over the last week—while we are not able to fit a complete rundown of the events from the week in our pages, we do want to make sure to provide a sense of the kinds of things that you might have enjoyed, or possibly missed out on and wished you hadn’t.
As always, all the events in the county are filled with amazing people who in perfect world would all get their own pictures, stories, and profiles. Since that’s not really possible, here are a few that represent the events in question.
