CENTRAL IDAHO

Summary

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Not even snakes, poison oak and the constant threat of ticks could deter from the outstanding beauty on day three of our backpacking trip into Hells Canyon. It was by far my favorite day. The views were unbeatable and we had the trails to ourselves. This place is both breathtaking and peaceful.

Trail Stats

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Trail Details

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Day three of our Hells Canyon backpacking adventure started early. As the sky began to lighten, I slowly woke as nature intended. Up with the light. No alarms needed. Though, with both arms numb from sleeping on the ground all night. After laying there a while, listening to the rushing of the river and birds singing, it was time to get up. AKA I was bored of staring at the tent ceiling. In no time we were up and ready for the day. Today we were day hiking and would return to camp. Only day packs were needed, filled with the necessities and lunch. Much lighter than day one’s pack into Kirkwood Ranch and day two’s hike into Sheep Creek. 

We officially hit the trail at 7:20am, leaving our Upper Sheep Creek campsite to explore further along the trail. Fairly respectable departure really. There’s a small hill pretty much immediately after our camp. After that it was off, to the sand bar we thought we’d camp at the previous night. That idea was discarded when we noted, from afar, that the area was occupied by a boating party. As the point of backpacking, in part, for us is to escape society we chose a different site. 

Today the path took us directly through their campsite. Which was a little weird walking through. Granted, it seems that very few people pass through this way. At least this far out. This group consisted of two ridiculously friendly tour operators and their party of three or four guys on a guided rafting trip. Today was a lay day, where I assume they were going to fish. They had fished the night before and caught (and released) a sturgeon. We were offered breakfast, pancakes. I politely declined. How weird would that be to barge through AND eat their food? Plus, it was too early to be hungry. We chatted it up a bit and learned they were on a 5 day raft trip. It’s one of those great outfits that sends one crew member ahead with all the gear. Who then sets up the next camp before your arrival. Tents, meal area, coolers, potty area, etc. We saw this guy the following day as we were hiking out. He went though the rapids solo. And even later we saw him setting up camp at breakneck speed at Kirkwood Ranch. That was one packed raft. We also saw the tour group along the river a few times. Always more fun when you recognize people. As we walked along, both Doug and I decided that would be a wildly fun trip. The group was called America’s Rafting Co . Maybe we’ll have to book a tour someday. 

After waving adiós, we journeyed on. Here the trail is relatively flat for about two miles. The trail heads inland a bit and the river is hidden from view. I would like to take this opportunity to say the trail is in terrible shape, shortly after Sheep Creek. The grasses ranged from mid shin to knee high and were overtaking the trail rapidly. Apparently, most years a high school group is dropped off upstream at Granite Creek and hikes out. Which seriously helps define the trail with all those feet stomping along. This year, it did not happen. All learned from those tour guides who, I believe, were relatively local boys. My school never did anything that awesome. 

Multiple times we lost the trail entirely. The great part of walking through a canyon along a river is there’s only one real way to go. Granted, its nice to know if you should be above or below a rock wall before getting there, but overall you’ll find your way just fine if you have half a brain and any route finding skills at all. To be fair, I grew up in the woods and while I will get lost going around a city block, I am quite good at navigating in the wilds. Just not in a city. Doug loves nothing more than to look at me and tell me to navigate us back to our hotel on a trip. Even though he dang well knows I have no idea where we are. Or he’ll say, “this look familiar”? Uhh, no. Looks like a street. With buildings. I’m a landmark person. As in at the little park with the blue bench turn left. Better never paint that bench a different color. But outside in the mountains? I can get us out of there. Something clicks in my brain. Which is likely a good thing with how frequently we are out in the middle of nowhere. Oh, side note, Doug found a herbivore skull out here.

I would also like to mention that the grass quickly became public enemy number one. I nick named it “stabby grass.” The grasses whipped my legs and the seed tips stabbed into your flesh, socks and shoes. I was frequently stopping to fish out a particularly offensive bit from my shoe. The seeds slid into our shoes as we walked along. I had seeds embedded in my socks and shoes clear down to my toes. Took forever to pick it all out. The front of my ankles wound up covered in what looked like miniature hives from being stabbed so frequently. Nasty stuff. Pretty but painful. 

Public enemy number two came in the form of snakes. Lots of snakes. Seven that we saw today. Gah. I do wonder how many more we passed by completely unaware of. Certainly more than a few. Nothing makes one squeak and jump quite like a snake. Our first encounter came in that endless grassy section. Doug was walking ahead and passed by. Apparently I was more offensive to the serpent, who coiled up and rattled its tail at me. Sheesh. I was moving already. But I do at least like the warning prior to a potential strike. To be fair, not all the snakes were rattlesnakes, which I believe are the only type of venomous snakes in the canyon. One was a large Great Basin Gopher snake.  The ugliest snake I’ve ever seen turned out to be a Rubber Boa. It just kinda hung out on the trail and did nothing except give Doug a near heart attack. They are brown. A very unappealing shade of brown. Still. I’ll take them over the rattlers. Made pushing through all that grass where you couldn’t see the trail or your feet clearly all the more spicy and entertaining. Especially pushing through bushes. We saw one very fat snake laying across the trail spanned between two shrubs. Good thing Doug saw it before accidentally stepping on it. We made a nice wide circle around this resting fiend. Long story short. There are snakes. Be aware. 

Moving on, the trail once again provides views of the Snake river. Across its waters, on the Oregon side you’ll see a small landing strip. Once again, I can’t fathom why you’d choose flying into the canyon. To land somewhere where there’s nothing around. Wait a minute. Maybe I just figured it out. It’s the lazy way of doing what we’d been doing over the past few days. Entering the wilds to decompress, hike and enjoy nature. 

After a while you’ll pass through a gorgeous dry gulch. The trail passes by large boulders dotting the landscape. Views of the rivers rapids provide entertainment. We watched a boater race up the rapids. Saw rafters go down the rapids. Watched rather large parties of rafters and boaters alike headed downstream. The river is certainly busy. 

The trail took us up and down the hillsides. Somewhere along here we noticed poison oak popping up all over the place. Especially along rock fields. Most was easy enough to avoid, though our hiking poles came in handy a few times to push it back. Occasionally Doug used his poles to whack his way through. Kind of like a blunt machete I suppose.

One of the main attractions along this section of trail is Bernard Creek. There’s a bridge to cross this rather healthy creek. On the other side lays the McGaffee cabin. It’s on the national register of historic places. It sits just back off the creek along a hillside in the shade of trees. We approached the cabin and entered as it was not locked or posted. Do watch the second wooden step up to the porch, it’s nearly rotten through. 

Inside the cabin was like taking a step back in time. There were two “rooms” on the main floor. A built in ladder on the wall lead to the attic where the residents used to sleep. We declined to head up as the floorboards looked rather dubious. I would rather not fall through, thanks. On the main floor, the walls were covered in old newspaper. There was a rickety table. A sign said visitors were welcome and could use the cabin to overnight in while the owners were away. Not sure that’s an up to date sign. Also, I’d rather sleep in my tent. I can only imagine all the critters that run amock in that cabin. In the back room of the cabin, there’s an old stove, which I found to be the coolest thing about the cabin. Humorously enough, a sign let you know the stove wasn’t in working condition. I seriously hope no one required the sign for that tid bit of knowledge. We chose this spot to plop down on the front porch and partake in a snack. Not a bad place to check out. 

After a quick refuel, it was time to find the trail. There was a bit of floundering. Remember, just about everything was overgrown. We headed beyond the cabin to what initially appeared to be a rock “gate”. There was nothing beyond but a dead end. So we walked back down the trail thinking perhaps it was through the lower meadow, closer to the river. It was not. Turns out the trail is directly next to the cabin. The grass was simply so overgrown it completely obscured any semblance of a trail. If you happen through, head up the hill and veer toward the river. You’ll find the path amongst the weeds and grass. If not, head up anyway and you’ll be able to find a clearer trail up there. 

With the trail found once again we were off to the next obstacle. After a relatively short walk through meadows the trail once again disappeared. As in vanished. And there was poison oak scattered throughout the grass. Heading forward was a massive and impressively wide thicket of poison oak. Hmm. No thank you. So we ever so cautiously headed toward the river, hoping to circumnavigate the worst of the noxious plants. There was a lot of picking our way and choosing our steps carefully. But it seemed to work. We slowly headed around and realized the thickest bits of these toxic thickets surrounded a creek. Which we would need to cross amongst the poison oak. We did find one spot that was clearer than the rest and had a conveniently placed rock in the center to step across on. With minimal nasty plants in the way. Luck was with us. After crossing we picked our way back uphill, albeit on a more diagonal route to avoid those plants, and found our trail once again. We had multiple themes this day. Loosing and finding the trail. Avoiding snakes and poison oak. Picking stabby grass out of our clothing and shoes. 

The next crossing is called Three Creeks I believe. There is no bridge and the creek was rather wide. We actually had to place quite a few rocks across it to avoid taking off our shoes and squelching across. Granted, I had a great time hucking rocks across. Worked fabulously. We were able to cross easy peasy without getting soaked. 

As the day was progressing rather rapidly, we called it quits on a rocky outcropping that overlooked the river and out to Granite Creek camp. The camp was only about a mile away. That was a difficult decision. Both of us wanted to continue onto the camp. But the trail dived DOWN here. A lot of down. Which we would then have to turn around and walk back uphill. We’s already walked over 10 miles and had to return. Both of us preferred to return in daylight. Especially with how entertaining the path was. So we settled for my favorite view of the whole trip, found a few rocks to sit down on and enjoy a late lunch. Today’s special was hummus on naan accompanied by dried mangoes and plantain chips. Yum. 

The view here was truly remarkable. The canyon walls are steep, creating a more dramatic backdrop. In the distance we could see a little patch of land extending into the water where the river turned. This patch of land is the Granite Creek Campsite. We decided the view was better looking down than it would have been to look up. Made us feel better. 

After lunch, it was back at it. This time we were a bit faster as we had a better idea of where the trail was. Granted we were slowed down by a few snakes and the plethora of poison oak all over the place. Otherwise the walk back was unremarkable in catastrophic events, thank heavens. 

As we approached the last  mile or two of trail we were assaulted in the cruelest of ways. Our noses smelt someone’s dinner. It was our rafting friends at the sandbar. I swear we could smell their dinner for nearly a mile. They had a giant roast of some sort that looked to have been slowly cooking for quite a while AND the most beautiful grill chock full of veggies ever. Once again, we briefly chatted. I think their leader was somewhat relieved to see us. Even said they were starting to get rather concerned as to our whereabouts as they hadn’t seen us in about 12 hours. They were surprised to learn we’d walked 20 miles so far. It was MANY hours later and I appreciated that they cared. I suppose most people don’t disappear on a day hike for 12 hours. Lord knows I’ve done it before. Way back when we lived in the Seattle area, I left Doug at home (working) and took our dog on a hike, which was pretty normal for me. I worked four 10 hour days and had an extra day off. Told Doug where I was going and off we went. That hike took forever. I wound up slogging through snow and  then clinging to trees on an icy hillside to the top. Then the dog and I wandered down the wrong way a bit before correcting our path back down. It took a lot longer than expected. So long that Doug actually got worried, which isn’t really the norm. Luckily the dog and I were perfectly fine. Just didn’t want to accidentally take an icy shortcut down the wrong side of the mountain. Great hike but I was out there for many hours. 

After our chat it was onto the last half mile or so to our camp where our significantly less delightful dinner awaited. One of those just add hot water deals. I think it was even Doug’s favorite, beef stroganoff. Bleh. But our cleanup was way easier for sure. We lucked out and had enough daylight left to eat, clean up and filter water prior to heading toward the tent and calling it a night. 

While we were sitting there, Doug found a tick. On the bottom of his sock, which is weird. But it did cause us both to perform thorough tick checks. And not in the Brad Paisley, “I’d like to check you for ticks” way. More like the half freak out kind of way. Ticks are repulsive. No more ticks were found. I made him put his socks at the foot of the tent. We disposed of the tick. Those are not easy creatures to end.

The next morning we would pack up and head out. Initially we planned to walk back to Kirkwood Ranch and stay overnight again. However, the weather was getting relatively nasty so we continued all the way through and ended our trip a day short, hiking a little over 15 miles to complete our exit. Which means we hiked a series of 5’s. Day one, 5 miles. Day two, 10 miles. Day three, 20 miles. Day four, 15 miles. Just over 50 miles. Not too shabby. 

The hike from Sheep Creek toward Granite Creek was my favorite day of hiking in Hells Canyon. Day one was short and sweet heading into Kirkwood Ranch. Day two was lovely with walking through endless meadows along the river. But on this third day, one could truly feel the solitude of having no one around. The views were spectacular throughout the canyon. I was always excited to see what was around the next corner. Granted, it was always more river and canyon, but the sights seemed to be ever changing. It was fun exploring the little cabin and taking a look back into the regions history. Even if briefly. We couldn’t have been happier. Well. It would have been nice to make it all the way to Granite Creek. Maybe next time. 

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