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| Satellite image of Hell's Canyon |
There is a lot of catching up to do. Starr and Karen have kept us pretty busy when we weren't dealing with truck and trailer issues. In the last post, I promised to write about our jet boat trip up
Hell's Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America. So here goes:
The Tuesday after Labor Day Bill and I took off in a borrowed car to Slate Creek, Idaho, to spend a couple of days with Karen's parents, Bruce and Nancy Dreher. Slate Creek is in north central Idaho on the
Salmon River, the largest tributary of the Snake River. The Drehers live on the east side of the river, a narrow mountain range is on the west side, and on the other side of that mountain range is the Snake River, the site of Hell's Canyon.
The drive up to Slate Creek passes through McCall, Idaho, described in an earlier blog. North of McCall it just keeps getting prettier. After Riggins, Idaho, we entered the Pacific time zone and followed the Salmon River north (down stream) to Slate Creek.
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| The Dreher Lookout |
As the sun dropped behind the western mountain range, I began searching for the sure sign that we were almost there - the Dreher Lookout. Bruce, who is a retired Forest Ranger, won it in an auction. He and Nancy disassembled it on its original mountaintop and re-assembled it on their property. It is fully furnished as in its heyday with a working stove.
The next day we drove over the mountain range to Pittsburg Landing in the
Hells Canyon National Recreation Area and boarded a jet boat to head upstream on the Snake River to the dam. Shortly after leaving the landing, we spotted a herd of
bighorn sheep on the Oregon side of the river. On the way back downstream from the dam, we watched a bear moving along the Idaho shore. The river has some impressive rapids, one of which contained another boat that had run aground the day before. We made several stops to visit historical landmarks, including the
Kirkwood Ranch. (Do check out this link!)
Unfortunately, my camera was having issues, so I have no pictures of my own. Check the
Killgore Adventures website and these pictures I found using Zemanta. The first one is from just below the dam.
The next day, I got my camera working. We piled into Bruce's pickup and drove up Nut Basin Road for a bird's eye view of the Salmon River area. The first one shows the Dreher Lookout and the Dreher "museum" on the right. (Yes, these shots are from ground level!)
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| Steep |
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| Bruce Dreher |
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image by Photos of Nature's Calm via Flickr
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