Hells Canyon

Hells Canyon Hike - April 1994

Marge and daughter Carol, old friend from Canada Ron Collicutt, Pete and Norma Walker and son David Walker, we six decided to have a leisurely five day hike along a portion of Hells Canyon on the Snake River, we are hiking in April, the weather is starting to get warm and also a little rainy, however the rattlesnakes are not yet awake. It can be very hot in the canyon in the middle of summer.

(We have just gotten out of the boat and are ready to start hiking.)

Hells Canyon was designated a national recreation area in 1975. The 652,500 acre canyon has a maximum depth of 7,900 ft making it the deepest gorge in North America. Major attractions on the Snake River are jet boats and river rafts as well as fishing . Here I saw the biggest Sturgeon I have ever seen, and they are usually seen at the mouth of creeks flowing into the Snake River.

We started at the Hells Canyon dam at the southern end of the Snake river and our plan is to hike the 36 miles "wild and scenic" section. Our trail is on the Idaho side and in order to start our hike we took a jet boat from the dam through some interesting rapids and about twenty minutes later the boat deposited us on the Idaho side of the river. This section is very popular with Jet boats and River rafts all running the rapids which are rated class 3 and 4 because of the size of the rapids.

(The boat in this picture is running up the river)

We will end our hike at Pittsburg Landing, where we have left one of the cars prior to starting out. Peter, being a retired District Ranger for the U.S. Forest Service has been in this area many times and we will camp early some days and hike with him for 'show and tell' into sites along the way.

The Trail is easy to follow and on the second day we came upon this abandoned cabin and we decided to pitch our tents inside for the night. It was raining and and this seemed like a good decision.

David however put his tent up outside. We were also able to dry some of our clothes.

The weather is remaining a little wet for the most part but that does not dampen our enthusiasm or our appetites.

A big open field gives us lot of room for our tents on one of the nights. And a welcome picnic table on another night.

Here we are working our way up to the top

of a mountain, we were never more than

a 700 ft from the top and quite a lot of the time we walked closer to the river.

This canyon is rated as the deepest gorge in North America, it has Idaho's Seven Devils Mountains on one side and Oregon's Wallowas Mountains on the other side, we however are not hiking that portion of the canyon. We do see pictographs on the walls and rocks throughout this section made by the Nez Perce and Paiute Indians.

A great view looking back up the river, as we sat up in the grass on a nice and warm day, eating our lunch.

As we were nearing the end of our hike we visited the Kirkwood Ranch, which has been restored in the Hells Canyon National recreation Area. This museum depicts the early ranching and homesteading in the canyon. This historical ranch was at one time the former home of Idaho's Governor Len Jordan. This area is accessible only boat or by trail and is staffed by volunteers throughout the year. When we arrived, the volunteer had just finish baking a batch cookies, and when offered to us, we sat and ate very happily.

Marge and Carol looking back along another stretch of the river.

We are now hiking out to Pittsburg Landing Road which is located on Forest Road 493 and has good campgrounds if you need to stay over night. This is a popular access to the river. We pick up our car and then drive many miles from one drainage to another as shown in the picture below to reach Idaho Hiway 55 and start our drive back home. The weather may not have been perfect, but the company was, this was my second trip into Hells Canyon and I would go back again, it is a fun hike early in the Spring. The biggest obstacle is driving a car to the end and also having someone drive you to the starting point.

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