HELL'S CANYON, Idaho & Oregon July 2004 Hell's Canyon is part of the boundary between the two states. This is the upper easily accessable part of the canyon.
See the photograph below. I literally missed the boat (by 10 minutes) and watched it start down the rapids of the Snake River into the lower and wilder parts of the canyon. Darn. Maybe next time. I did videotape the boat running the first little set of rapids (actually, I did it twice; for the boat powered back up the rapids and ran them again --I guess that would reassure its screaming passengers that the boat could eventually return).
Later, I carefully walked/scrambled/climbed along a "goat" trail on this side of the river down to the bend that you see. I would take few steps watching my feet. Then I would stop, look around, videotape. Then repeat the process. I would never look at anything else other than my feet as I moved, and I would never move my feet as I was enjoying the view. It was that kind of place, but quite safe if you strictly maintain the discipline.
The distance from the top of the mountains above the canyon to the bottom of the canyon makes this the deepest canyon cut through rock strata in the US, deeper than the Grand Canyon. The cut is through massive layers of flood basalt rock that covered parts of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. (See the next photograph below.)
You can't simply stand on the edge of Hell's Canyon and look down from the top to the bottom, because the enormous erosion has cut away so much of the surrounding rock that the "edges" are horizontally far from the river bed - miles in this case. In the picture below, the river itself flows from south (right) to north (left) deep within one of those canyons in the distance. I have forgotten how many 1,000's of feet above the river bed I was when I snapped this shot. The sheer thickness and extent of the flood basalts that covered this area is hard to comprehend.
