A Week in White Bird, Idaho (on the Idaho side of Hells Canyon)

I drove from Newport, Washington south to White Bird, Idaho ... into the thick of the smoke from the wildfires (mostly from the Columbia River Gorge fire, but then White Bird is located near Montana, Oregon and Washington, so I received the benefit from all of the fires!).  Not only was visibility bad (the haze and smoke were like a fog), the air quality about chocked me.  You could hardly see the trees and the sun was a glowing red ball in the sky.  It gave very strange reflections off surfaces.  It was so bad, business are advertising "smoke free inside."  I was disappointed to take the scenic drives this week and not be able to see anything.

Because of the location, I didn't have cell or internet coverage (hence the delay of this blog); always a challenge when living on the road.

US 95 is the Nez Perce Highway.  Take your time on this drive; there are frequent turnouts for historical  information  about the Nez Perce Indians and this area.  They are pretty interesting.  Unfortunately, the smoke was so bad that at all of the overlooks all you could see was white.

A little history about Hells Canyon:  Early explorers referred to the gorge as Box Canyon or Snake River Canyon.  The first reference to Hells Canyon appeared in an 1895 edition of McCurdy's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest.  The canyon plunges 8,913 feet and 1 1/2 miles from its summit (He Devil Mountain is 9,393 feet above sea level) to the mouth of Granite Creek.  It is North America's deepest river gorge (deeper than the Grand Canyon).

My first "drive" after getting set up, was to Pittsburg Landing.  Pittsburg Landing is the only access to the Snake River in this part of Idaho.  It is a 17 mile drive on (of course) a gravel road.   Little did I realize I would be doing this drive twice (I would have postponed this one).   This is just a couple snaps of the road on my GPS .... It is so steep, chains are required.

It was a good thing I was driving slowly, because at one point a deer leaped over the fence and landed on the road right in front of my car.  It about give me a heart attack.


The drive to Riggins was very pleasant, along the "River of No Return"; something about driving alongside a river is very relaxing.

Another drive was to Heavens Gate Lookout.  This one I was very disappointed to miss!  You have to drive 19 miles on Seven Devils Road.  From the Lookout you can see Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Montana.  The road was kind of a "white knuckle" but I was rewarded by some wild horses and cattle (there is always cattle on the roads; it is open range here). 

In this picture, the upper left corner is a snap of the road; it was like driving on a dry river bed with rocks, only there was an 8,000 foot cliff on the side of the road and no guard rails! It felt like I was at the edge of the world and I could fall off.  The upper right corner is the view from the Lookout.  That grayish shadow is more smoke coming from one of the fires.


I also took the Old White Bird Hill Backcountry Drive (again couldn't see anything but smoke).  It was considered an engineering feat in its day as it zigzagged 2,900 feet gaining 4,429 feet in elevation in 14 miles.  Prison labor helped construct the road.  It was bypassed by the newer Hwy 95 and now has little traffic.  When you drive over this bridge, White Bird is the town below.  The elevation here is about 4,500 feet.

I am within 10 miles of a Time Zone change in two directions so it makes it a little challenging to know which clock is correct sometimes.

I did stop to look at the White Bird Battlefield (what I could see of it) and was again amazed at the feat of the soldiers to haul themselves and their artillery up and down those hills.  They must be part billy goat ... The first battle of the Nez Perce Was was fought here on June 17, 1877.  When soldiers arrived in the area, they fired upon Nez Perce who were waving a white flag of peace, beginning the fight.  How sad.

The Tolo Lake Mammoths:  In 1994, heavy equipment operators, completing a rehabilitation project at Tolo Lake, discovered fossils that turned out to be mammoth and bison.  To perpetuate the interest in the discovery, some local citizens banded together to purchase a life-size skeletal replica of a mammoth and built a shelter to house it.

 

 I always joke that you can always find a Walmart (the reason I get my prescriptions filled there), but White Bird has proven me wrong.  I had to drive 100 miles back into Clarkston, Washington to find one (with a Costco next door).  Someone had a sense of humor, or some coordination, because the town across the Snake River into Idaho is Lewiston.  This, of course, is the Lewis and Clark trail.

I don't know what to think about the weather.  Florida is having their challenge with Irma, I still can't get my mail out of Texas because of the flooding, the Pacific Northwest is on fire, Idaho is having earthquakes ....

Another scenic drive, this one to Elk City ... The drive there on Hwy 14 was very nice. The road  followed the river the whole way, so you can imagine how twisty/turning the drive was, but very beautiful.  I decided to take the backcountry byway back - characterized as an all natural, no frills, individualistic and unpretentious pathway through rural North Central Idaho.  Lets just say it took me a few hours to get home.

I took this picture of the door on the side of the building at the gas station (the only gas station).  Do you think anyone uses it?  ha.

As you can imagine by now, I'm starting to cross off some of the scenic drives I had planned for this area ....

So, for my birthday treat, I took a jetboat down the Snake River through Hells Canyon.  This was my first experience with rapids and it was FUN.  Of course, I got soaked, but only because the pilot asked me to move to the side rear as he went over one of the class 5 rapids .... I don't know if it was my birthday present ....


I didn't get any pictures of the rapids, as we had to put our cameras away if we didn't want them wet ...

The picture in the right corner is of the long-horn sheep in the area.  They turned their "butts" to me as I took the picture.

Just before the dam is supposed to be the best salmon fishing anywhere; so great that fishermen climbed down the cliff by rope.  The Forest Service finally took pity on them and built this staircase.  This is just the lower half ....

The salmon that are "caught" in the dam are given to local fish hatcheries.

The Farmer's Market in Grangeville is the first one I've been to that actually sold meat - lamb, pork and beef.

And that was my week.  I'm off to see the Oregon side of Hells Canyon and more scenic drives ....