Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in America. The canyon is located at North Easter Oregon bordering with Washington and Idaho state. It is about 16km wide and has the deepest river gorge of 2436 meters. At the deep end of Hells Canyon, Snake river flows through it and carves through the canyon. Snake river also acts as the border between Oregon and Idaho.
Although Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in America, it is not as popular as Grand Canyon due to its remote location. We visited Hells Canyon when we were having vacation at Wallowa Lake. To go from Wallowa Lake to Hells Canyon, it is about 1.5 hour of drive to Hells Canyon Overlook. Original we were worried about the road being in bad condition or unpaved, but we were wrong. The road was in perfectly good condition and was only paved back in 2015. So driving to Hells Canyon Overlook was quite easy through the winding mountain road.
While on the way to Hells Canyon Overlook, we came across many free range farms. We were actually stopped by 2 cows standing in the middle of the road! The cows were starring at us in the car and slowly moved to the side of road. We were wondering where the cows come from because we were very high up in the mountain.
After about 1.5 hours, we reached Hells Canyon Overlook. It was a smoggy day due to Oregon forest fire, but we could still see the canyon wall at the far end. We felt so small while overlooking Hells Canyon!
Afterwards, we decided to drive all the way down to Snake River to see what it is like at the end of the Canyon. We drove on the road for another hour toward East to reach the bottom of the mountain by Snake River. It felt very deserted and not many cars are around. We did not see any gas stations either, thus it is important to keep the gas tank full!
We drove along Snake River and also went through a single lane tunnel to reach Hells Canyon Park. There were few trailers there with people camping there.
Overall, Hells Canyon was an interesting place to see, but do not expect too much activities here. There are some boat tours but we did not bother to take a tour. It was a good experience but we would not recommend to put this on the must do list when visiting Wallowa region.
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