Saturday, June 11, 2011

Hell's Canyon????

This past weekend, my friend and I went jet-boating down Hell's Canyon(near White Bird, ID and on ID & OR border). So I was expecting lots of steep red shades of rock and HOT weather. The first thing I was surprised at was that we went into Pacific time zone in Idaho(UT is Mountain Time Zone like I thought all of Idaho was too---Hell's Canyon is right on border of time zones)! Secondly, I was surprised at all the shades of green steep mountain sides and 70 degree weather(but it has been a very cool Spring and Summer out West). It was so green, it reminded me of mountain sides(or hillsides) of Europe, not of someplace in Idaho! And the water was extra high because of all the snow and rain we've had this year so the rapids were even more rapid! In fact we couldn't even go all the way to the dam because the rapids near there were too dangerous to go through. But we had some sweet level 3 and 4 rapids to go through upstream and downstream. The jet-boat careened through those waves so speedily! It was the best part of the ride! And going upstream sometimes gave the illusion that the land/mountains were moving instead of the boat moving---very strange perception! It was an all day tour so we stopped at different areas along the way to walk around and enjoy the beauty in those areas! Hell's Canyon is on the Snake River(I swear that's an unbelievably long river--it's all over WY and ID)! But I definitely think this canyon has the wrong name! It was so green and beautiful!