Along Oregon's eastern border, a hellishly beautiful canyon

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Shadows deepen the furrowed ridges of Hells Canyon in this view from the Hells Canyon Overlook late in the day. (Photo by Steve Dieffenbacher)

October 22, 2009

By Steve Dieffenbacher

Mail Tribune

It's a rare thing to go into the depths of hell and return uplifted, but if you enter Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America, with respect and an open mind, that's what you'll experience.

Because like many other remote, wild places in Oregon, the canyon's fearsome reputation has blinded many people to its rugged, pristine beauty.

Adding to its fierce aura, this stunning gorge along Oregon's eastern border with Idaho has been misnamed, not once but twice, in my opinion. For most of its existence, Hells Canyon was called the Snake River Canyon. That was a reference to the "Snake" or Shoshone Indians, who when identifying themselves to white settlers in sign language used an undulating hand motion that was supposed to say "we are a people who live by a river full of fish."

Settlers misinterpreted the motion to mean snake, and so the canyon they inhabited was called that until the 1950s when it became Hells Canyon, apparently after a history book about steamboating described a ship's particularly rough passage through the canyon. The author wrote that the craft was bounced by the current to the middle of the river "like a racehorse shot into the Hell Canyon."

Although these misrepresentations have magnified the canyon's hazards, they are accurate to a point. Although Hells Canyon is a place of great diversity and magnificence, it still holds many secrets and can be deadly to the foolish.

Oregonians attracted to it out of a fascination with its hazards often decide to encounter it first from a distance — the popular overlook at Hat Point 7,000 feet above the river. Yet viewing it at river level conveys its majesty and unsettling scale better, and that can be done just as safely.

To get there without navigating gravel roads, take Highway 86 east from Interstate 84 north of Baker City, drive 65 miles to Oxbow, then follow the side road to Hells Canyon Dam on the Idaho side of the river for another 23 miles. Of course that's after the hundreds of miles you'll have to drive from Southern Oregon just to get to Baker City.

But if you've never seen the canyon, the trip is more than worth it. Because at 7,913 feet it's deeper than Grand Canyon in the Southwest. And the Snake River that carved it is truly serpentine, beginning in Yellowstone National Park and ending at the Columbia River in Pasco, Wash., 1,036 miles away, marking Oregon's eastern boundary with Idaho along the way.

The canyon began 300 to 130 million years ago with volcanic eruptions on Pacific islands and was brought to its present width by a massive flood at the end of the last Ice Age. In between were millions of years of sedimentation, uplifts from tectonic plates as the islands hit North America, and the irresistable cutting force of the river itself.

The result is a series of cliffs with microclimates, in which temperatures may vary 20-30 degrees from top to bottom. In its depths, the winters are mild, making it a haven for the Nez Perce and Shoshone Indians before white settlement, while in the summers, its higher, grassy benches offered them cooler temperatures and good hunting.

Today, protected as the 652,488-acre Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, the canyon still shelters a dazzling variety of wildlife, including mountain lions, black bears, deer, elk, bighorn sheep, bobcats, coyotes, wolverines, bald and golden eagles, great gray owls, peregrine falcons and 13 species of bats.

It is also home to some of the most intact areas of native bunchgrasses in the state. Although all the salmon runs above Hells Canyon Dam were wiped out when the dam was built, 32.5 miles of the river have been designated as Wild and Scenic, allowing some salmon and steelhead to survive downstream.

Admittedly, the extent of the canyon, and its vertical sweeps are too much to absorb in one trip. Its full depth isn't even fully apparent from the bottom because its cliffs rise in tiers, with benchlands in between each rise. To truly take it in, you have to walk some of the wilderness trails that course through it. You also can pay for a jetboat ride above the dam to explore a portion of the upper river. But what you see from the road is inspiring enough as an introduction. At river level, combinations of gray, rust and yellow-covered rock soar over water that changes from blue to green to gray depending on the time of day.

Standing under those furrowed ridges as grasses glimmer in the late afternoon sun under an expansive blue sky, you'll be drawn to its raw beauty. Because the same forces that made Hells Canyon, in some way made us, and we are the better for it. For anyone drawn in as I was, the canyon eventually reveals more of itself, but it tells its stories slowly I've been told, and only to those with the patience and determination to spend more time there. Secrets that long-held aren't given out easily, these canyon veterans say, and that is as it should be.

Steve Dieffenbacher is a Mail Tribune page designer/copy editor. You can reach him at 776-4498 or sdieffenbacher@mailtribune.com.

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