TO HELL AND BACK

We left Baker Monday morning and headed east into not the most welcoming skies we’ve seen.  But they sure make for pretty pictures.

We were driving on OR 86, which is a beautiful drive, following the Powder River for much of the way,

with a bit of Fall color making the scene.

Part of this road is recently rebuilt after the devastating “Hole in the Wall” landslide wiped out about a half mile worth of road.  We stopped at a viewpoint to view it, but it wouldn’t make a good picture.  So just imagine a mountainside letting go with enough earth to make a huge dam that backed the river up for many miles.  This road is designated the

and we’re glad we took it.  Our goal was to check out Hell’s Canyon itself, which follows the Snake River northward along the Oregon-Idaho border.  The nice lady at the Baker rv park had clued us into several nice parks operated by the Idaho Power Company, with electric and water for only $16.  Now, that’s more like it.  The parks turned out to be beautiful, and would put most high-end commercial parks to shame.

The road up to Hell’s Canyon runs along the Idaho side of the Snake.  It’s about 23 miles from our camp.  We virtually had the road to ourselves, and given its twisties, that’s probably for the better.

It was another great scoot road.  That’s the road hugging the cliffside in the low distance.

This portion of the Snake really is like a long fjord or loch, as it is backed up here by the Hell’s Canyon dam ahead and the Oxbow dam just above where we are camped.  It’s not really the “wild” Snake of fame.  Once you get to the dam and can look downstream, you can see that part of it beginning.  The jet boats and float craft put in just at the end of the road you can see on the left, and head away from us, downstream. 

At this time of year, however, just about everything is closed for the season, including the visitor center at the literal end of the road.

Good thing they left the separate bathroom facilities unlocked.  I tried to use the time function on the camera to get a shot of the both of us, but the stairs leading down to where Loni was waiting were too long and convoluted.  I nearly broke my neck trying to get into the shot.

This is as far as the road goes, so we turned around and headed back towards the dam,

23 miles of the same twisties in reverse,

and home before the Devil knew we were gone.

Oh yeah.  One last thing.  Kudos to Idaho Power for the prettiest dump station we have ever used (at the cement portion)!