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North Central Idaho Travel Region

Hells Canyon

Hells Canyon is located at the northern tip of the Oregon-Idaho border. Comprising more than 600,000 acres of rugged, pristine wilderness and located in one of the most remote sections of the contiguous 48 states, it is a landscape that all but defies comparison. It is home to the deepest river chasm on the continent and three of North America's Wild and Scenic rivers. It is characterized by some of the hottest summer temperatures and most forbidding winters in the Northwest. Even today, more than 100 years after the Nez Perce tribes were driven from the area in support of European settlement, the lands surrounding the NRA remain sparsely populated and roads remain in some places, little better than the wagon trails that were forged a century ago.

Downstream view of the Snake River and Hells Canyon from a point just a few miles south of the Hells Canyon Dam.

Straddling the Oregon-Idaho perimeter is the actual Hells Canyon, approximately 120 miles of basalt, limestone and granite canyon walls that have been scored by thousands of years of coursing water. In some places, the rock face towers as high as a mile above the Snake River, creating a chasm that would dwarf the highest rim of the Grand Canyon. Considered the largest tributary to the mighty Columbia River, the Snake is known throughout the world not only for its beauty and size, but its ideal river-rafting opportunities.

Hells Canyon Visitor Bureau. 504 Bridge Street, Clarkston, WA 99403. Phone: 509-758-7489; Toll-free: 1-877-774-7248.

Hells Canyon Shuttle, Inc. Located at: Scotty's Hells Canyon Outdoor Supply, PO Box 149, Oxbow, OR 97840. Toll-free: 1-800-785-3358. E-mail

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