The Battle to Preserving Hell

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Joel Connelly
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An awful lot of the flora and fauna in Hells Canyon will stick you, painfully sting, or bite. The centerpiece is an unleashed river with swirling rapids that can sweep you away. The deepest canyon in North America, the Snake River is flanked by mountains up to 9,000-feet.

I rafted the river in high runoff one spring, taking home the memory of being sucked into quarter-mile-long Wild Sheep Rapid. Months later, I stood atop the wonderfully named Dry Diggins Lookout at 7,500-feet in Idaho’s Seven Devils Wilderness and looked down more than a vertical mile to the river.

It was 50 years ago, with bipartisan support, that Congress created the 652,488-acre Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, protecting an undammed river and mountains in both Oregon and Idaho.

Raft trips introduced me to the human history of Hells Canyon and its old overgrown ranches and orchards and Indian petroglyphs. The most moving spot is where in 1877 the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph, fleeing the U.S. Cavalry, crossed the Snake River at high runoff.

https://www.postalley.org/2025/01/27/the-battle-to-preserving-hell/

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Our family visited Hell's Canyon half a century ago.

Unwisely chose to drive down a very narrow, winding dirt road to the bottom. Don't remember much of it but the terrifying drop on the right.

Camping in the area was a lot more interesting. Saw my first wild gourd plant there -- thought it was buffalo gourd, but that seems to be too far north for that species.