RETIREMENT TRIP #7

Heading into Hell--the Canyon, That Is!

                                                     When we got up this morning, the house across from the motel had between draped with toilet paper. It brought back fond high school memories. The waitress at breakfast explained that by tradition the competitive volleyball and football teams dress each other’s homes on game nights, but local police don’t mind as long as they kids clean up the mess.  Andy told her about my choice encounter with the whole practice senior year. 

Lush dry grass covers the hillsides of
western Idaho.

From Cambridge, we headed due north into Wallowa County.
"The mountains are getting bigger,” said Andy, as we crossed over a 4,128-foot rise and saw the peaks ahead of us.  We were headed toward Hells Canyon between Idaho and Oregon.
The lake formed by the damming of the Snake River glistened in the early morning sun.  We stopped twice for pictures, but taking them was tricky business with the difference of lighting and my shadow.
The road wound in sharp curves around the lake up to the Brownlee Dam.  Andy thought he saw a ferret dash across the road.  I missed it.
In 1862, John Brownlee settled in the area, and a creek was named after him.  In the late 1800’s Brownlee started a ferry service to shuttle silver miners and their ore across the Snake River.  It operated until the late 1800's.  Miners were still active in 1960, when ore was moved in huge trucks.  Other methods like rail and tram were tried, but the steep volcanic slopes made transportation difficult and expensive.

Dammed for hydro power, the Snake River spreads wide
in the harsh landscape.

Still in Idaho, we photographed the dam and spillway.  “There are still disagreements here,” said Andy.  “The two dams impinge on salmon migration up the Snake River.”    It was easy to see why from the height of the spillway. Just then we saw a fish jump for a bug in the river next to us.
Brownlee Reservoir is 58 miles long, the longest on the Snake River, and it stores 1,500,000 acre-feet of water of which 1,000,000 acre-feet are available for power generation.  The capacity of the dam is 585,400 kilowatts of electricity.  Brownlee produces more electricity than any of Idaho Power’s other hydroelectric plants.


From the Oregon side of the Snake River, we record
spectacular views of the canyon.

An old barbed wire fence
marks a ranch boundary.

Once on the Oregon side we stopped again for pictures and walked into a side canyon.  “That’s probably somebody’s ranch,” said Andy, looking up the rock slope.  Brown-eyed Susan's and bluebells bloomed everywhere.  Craggy volcanic rock columns jutted out from beneath the dry grasses in Devil’s Postpile formations.At Oxbow Dam in Oregon, we walked into some Devil’s Postpile formations accented with bushy purple flowers that reminded me of lilacs. We learned later that they were actually blue-colored berries in bunches on a tree.  From a distance we could see the dam and the lake it created.  Vegetation along the water grew lush and green in contrast to adjoining dry, grassy mountainsides.
“There is one area here that is actually deeper than the Grand Canyon,” said Andy, “but you’re on the bottom instead of the top. It’s the deepest canyon in North America.  It’s cut by the river, but it’s off the beaten path.”


The private power company road allows tourists to
explore along the Idaho side of the river.

Oxbow got its name from a three-mile bend in the Snake River.  To early settlers in the area the river bend looked like the U-shaped frame that forms a collar about an ox’s neck.  The site is 13 miles below Brownlee Dam.  Here the river carves its way around a large mass of erosion-resistant rock.  It’s one of the world’s most unusual dam sites.  Oxbow, on average produces 1,104,144 megawatt hours of electricity per year, enough to supply approximately 76,000 households.
We took the 17-mile private power company road on the Idaho Side to the third dam, Hells Canyon Dam.

Andy "bears" the journey along the power company road
a few miles from the Hells Canyon Dam.

“They let cattle graze in here,” said Andy, when we saw some from the Oregon side as we drove toward Hells Canyon Dam.  “They probably stay in here all summer.”  Just then a cowboy rode into view.  We watched him follow one black heifer along the path for what must have been a quarter mile.  A small group of cows stayed behind on the steep slope, grazing peacefully.  Suddenly I spotted another cowboy on horseback coming from the opposite direction and driving a collection of six or eight more cows.  “They are rounding up the cattle for winter,” said Andy.  “The government probably sells them grazing rights.   The power company maintains the road and campgrounds, but it’s Payette National Forest, so the government manages the land.”

On horseback, a cowboy rounds up
his cattle and drives them out of
the canyon to winter quarters.

The canyon narrowed and deepened the farther in that we drove.  No longer was there a cow path on the other side, and the mountainside dropped steeply to the river.  At Lynch Creek we could trace the creek bed as it dropped down the cliff.  It is just a line of green in the dry summer sun of September.

Green swatches down
canyon walls mark
the stream beds.

At Black Point a sign explained the historical significance of the area to the mining industry.  Another trail of green marked the dry stream across the river.
We crossed the Hells Canyon Dam back to Oregon and had our first glimpse of the unadulterated Snake, with whitewater rapids accenting the flow even in the driest month.
At trail’s end, Hells Canyon Creek, the Visitor Center, showed a movie called InFocus about cooperation to preserve the land and provide recreational facilities for the public, 652,000 acres of unspoiled wilderness—fishing, hunting, riding, camping, hiking, cross-country skiing, boating, rafting, appreciating the natural world.

From the Visitor Center whitewater rapids
are visible even in the dry season.

Historians say the name Hells Canyon had its beginnings with a cargo ship pilot named Haller.  The story is that Mr. Haller built a boat named Norma to haul copper ore from mines located near present day Oxbow.  In the Norma’s first and only trip through Hells Canyon in 1895, Haller found the river rapids more than he had expected.
Either because of what Haller said as he tried to pilot the boat or because of inaccurate repetition of his name in the phrase “Haller’s Canyon,” the name Hells Canyon stuck.
The wildness of the river and the nearly impassable, steep mountain terrain probably had a lot to do with the naming of the canyon too.
Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon on the North American continent, and the site of the Hell’ Canyon Dam is one of the narrowest points in the canyon.  Before crews could begin construction at the site an access highway 23 miles in length had to be cut along the Idaho side of the canyon.
Morrison-Knudsen, the contractor, used a small strip of level ground two miles upstream to erect trailer-type offices, a first-aid facility, machine and carpenter shops.  Nine miles upstream living quarters and a mess hall were built.

Andy climbs high up
the canyon wall.

Because of the closeness of the canyon, there was no room for a switchyard, so it was erected on the downstream face of the dam.  Helicopters were used to move tools and equipment into place and to erect transmission towers.
These towers hold transmission lines in place that carry power out of the canyon on the Oregon side.  Despite the cramped working space, the concrete Hells Canyon Dam was built to full height in only 16 months.
The total project investment was $278,000,000 for the development of Hells Canyon, including the construction of Brownlee, Oxbow and Hells Canyon dams.
The ranger, an environmental science major, identified the unusual plant we had seen as mullein, an invasive from Eurasia that moves into disturbed land.


Miles away at Canyon Overlook, Sue celebrates a birthday.

We watched some rafters cleaning gear, climbed part way up the basalt cliff for the view, checked out the Visitor Center displays and relaxed long enough to breathe deeply and enjoy the weather—brilliant sun and low 70-degree temperatures.  This was HEAVEN, not Hell.At the turn out of Hells Canyon National Recreation Area we saw a “grouse barrel.”  Probably ordinary for Idaho natives, we found the instructions to clip wing and tail of each bird an unusual and interesting practice.


Seven far distant peaks are the Seven Devils that helped
give Hells Canyon its name.

From there, the Hells Canyon Overlook was 23 miles, road closed after October 15^th for the winter.  Guess that speaks to the severity of the weather in this remote country.  Mullein thrived along the roadside however.
The road wound high up to Hells Canyon Overlook in the alpine and subalpine climatic zones.  Open meadows, blanketed with the orange and brown remnants of spring wild flowers, dotted the mountainside peaks in between stands of pine.  In the distance we picked out the Seven Devils, Mountains that contributed to the naming of Hells Canyon.
“We’re going up again,” said Andy, as we got closer to Joseph, Oregon.  The Wallowa National Forest harbored huge, old pine trees.  Suddenly there was a lumber truck ahead of us, but we hadn’t seen any evidence of cutting.

An unobtrusive grave
commemorates
Old Chief Joseph.

Bronze statues line street corners
in downtown Joseph, Oregon

After checking the motel location in Joseph, Oregon, we leisurely drove through the park at Wallowa Lake, a six-mile long playground for water skiers, jet skiers and paddle boaters.  Andy rejected thoughts of riding the tram to the viewpoint when we checked the price: $38 per person (only $28 for Seniors over 65) to go up and down. I more than agreed with his choice of activities. Instead we climbed a small rise to the gravesite of Old Chief Joseph, the Indian father who refused to cede all the Nez Perce land to the federal government. 
The evening in Joseph, Oregon offered a special birthday treat: bronze sculptures on almost every street corner and art in classy shops along the six or eight blocks of manicured brick walkways.  We spent a relaxing evening browsing, picking up a few necessities at the local market, having Mexican dinner and deep fried ice cream at La Laguna and then walking the 1.25 mile path through Iwetemlaykin State Heritage Site, a 62-acre park dedicated to the Nez Perce Indians and Old Chief Joseph.
Before checking in for the night, we watched darkness settle in along the beach and boat dock at Wallowa Lake and strolled out over the water on the floating pier--a picture perfect celebration of life!