We Found Heaven in Hells Canyon

Remote and wild, Hells Canyon is ruggedly striking. Skimming over the water on a jet boat river tour, we were awed with the canyon’s beauty and unbroken wilderness as the Snake River slices through steep canyon walls in broad, bending curves. I loved knowing that it looks much the same today as it did when Lewis and Clark made their way 100 miles up river during their expedition of 1806.

Nearly surrounded by national forests, Hells Canyon is bordered by three states: Idaho on its eastern rim, Oregon on the western border and Washington to the north.

Hells Canyon covers a 74-mile portion of the Snake River as it flows from Hells Canyon Dam to Cache Creek on the Oregon-Washington border. The Snake River’s 1,038-mile passage originates in northwest Wyoming and ends when it meets the Columbia River in southeast Washington.

Several outfits offer river tours of Hells Canyon and we chose a three-hour jet boat tour. After briefing us on the boat—a 26-passenger, 33-foot welded aluminum boat with twin inboard jet drives—the captain instructed us on safety procedures and we began our tour, entering on the Washington side. We first drew in close to Hells Canyon Dam which, as we fought the turbulent waters, proved what a powerful boat we rode. Then, with Idaho on our right and Oregon on our left, we began our journey down the Snake River.

Almost immediately on a bluff high above us, we saw a mother brown bear and her cub, rummaging for food. Around a bend, a bighorn sheep stood so still it looked as though he were posing to have his picture taken. Other wildlife commonly seen in the canyon are elk, cougar, mule deer and mountain goat. The area is a bird watchers’ favorite with many species of owls, hawks, eagles, falcons and songbirds of every description. The habitat is varied in Hells Canyon because of the extreme differences in elevation within a short distance, from 7,000 feet at Hat Point in Oregon, down to 1,500 feet on the Snake River, and back up to 9,393 feet in the Seven Devils Mountains in Idaho—all within a 10-mile horizontal distance.

Hells Canyon, the deepest river gorge in North America, has history dating back to prehistoric times. Geologists claim millions of years ago, lava or basalt formed bold cliffs, then later Hells Canyon was created by erosion as the Snake River cut its way through rocks of a rising mountain range. It is still being cut and is probably deeper and more rugged today than at any other time in its history. At the present time, the gorge measures up to a mile and a half from mountain top to river bottom.

Traces of human existence in Hells Canyon date back as far as 8,000 years, from prehistoric Native American tribes, to Chief Joseph’s band of the Nez Perce Indians, to the 1860s gold miners and late1800s homesteaders.

We stopped at one clearing on the Idaho side that was at one time a transient Native American camp. We viewed Indian pictographs with painted scenes, now a faded red but still visible, a cave believed to have sacred spirits, and the remains of a pithouse, a structure used before teepees.

In places along the river, traces of gold mining operations are evident where the miners sluiced water from the river over the ore.

Early homesteaders were as rugged as the surrounding terrain. Due to the difficulty in travel, most families left the homestead to make the journey back to civilization for supplies only every one to three years. Supplies reached them via floating river rafts. Mostly, they caught or grew everything they needed and traded with neighbors.

Jagged cliffs go straight up on either side. Some cliffs are basalt, many shiny with manganese, others, made of pillow lava, are lumpy. Where trees could grow, we saw sumac, a few pines and low-growing brush. At times the cliff flattened out to patches of meadow grass. The Forest Service maintains the Oregon side and some of the Idaho side; other parts on the Idaho side are private land. The Snake is the deepest river in North America and is popular for fishing sturgeon, small-mouth bass, steelhead, trout and catfish.

Hells Canyon—there’s nothing like it to get back to the basics of nature and unmatched scenic adventure.

Book Review: The White Cascade

The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche, by Gary Krist chronicles the events surrounding the killer storm of February, 1910 in the Northwest’s Cascade Mountains.

A record-breaking blizzard delays two Great Northern Railway trains as they cross the Cascades near Stevens Pass: a passenger train, the Seattle Express, and a mail train, the Fast Mail. At first it doesn’t seem so serious, but as time wears on, the storm’s intensity increases. Although Superintendent James H. O’Neill and his men work around the clock, they are unable to clear the way for the two trains to get through. Stranded near the tiny railroad town of Wellington, passengers can do little more than wait it out, hoping their various destinations and projects won’t be too inconvenienced by the delay.

But the storm doesn’t abate, it only gets worse. It leaves so much snow on the tracks that the equipment can’t carry it off fast enough. Passengers get edgy as the days pass without relief. Over a six day period enough snow has fallen to bury a two-story house, and still there’s no letup.

As the weather warms, conditions get more dangerous with the threat of avalanches. Forests surrounding the trains have been thinned from fire, making conditions for avalanche even more likely. Thunder and lightning heighten the danger as the snowfields disintegrate.

Gary Krist does a remarkable job keeping suspense high throughout the book. With skill and meticulous detail he weaves local history, the personal lives of passengers and workers, newspaper accounts and meteorological conditions culminating in a killer avalanche, and finally the inquest resulting from the tragedy. Steam railroad buffs will find this book fascinating with its vivid descriptions of the ins and outs of railroading in early twentieth century. But you don’t have to be a railroad enthusiast to enjoy this book–it’s a piece of history skillfully presented.