Blue Mountain and Hells Canyon

We left our free campsite at Bonneville Dam and headed east along Columbia River around 9 am, so quite early for us. In the beginning we were planning to take interstate straight to Idaho, but as we wrote earlier it’s not so easy to leave Oregon. This time we got tempted by a brochure entitled "scenic byways". There are many of these byways in north-east Oregon and we’ve decided to see a bit of two of them - Blue Mountain an Hells Canyon.

The only downside of this decision was that we had to skip Pendelton, town located by the interstate, which is supposed to be the last real cowboy town in the West. Additionally when we were there they had huge round-up, so there was rodeo, food, lasso throwing, gunshows, cheap beer, so everything that young parents from central Mazovia and small towns of central Oregon love the most.

We didn’t go there in part because of we got irritated by Oregon marketing. Yes, we do love Oregon, but there is one thing that is really annoying. Did you know much about this state before reading our blog? If you’re not American we take it you didn’t. Meanwhile each tiny town here is described as "world famous" or "unofficial world capital of this and that".

So, if we remember well, Lancaster in the coast is "Unofficial world capital of kites”. Everything related to Pendelton is world famous too. About this round-up they probably talk  in Tripoli, Bejing and Tłuszcz, at least that’s how it’s described in all the leaflets. Local beer is a dream of beer lovers in Koluszki and Łeba (somewhere in Poland). Lighthouse in Yoaquina is "probably the mosted photographed lighthouse in the world" - our eyes still hurt from reading it. Everything is world famous, world capital, world something. What for, if it’s so beautiful here without such exaltation?

Luckily Blue Mountain byway was just nice, quiet road. It runs among green, grassy hills with heavily irrigated meadows full of cattle. Peace and quiet… Some time ago probably there were much more grain fields, because there are lot of abandoned grain elevators.

We stopped for longer twice. First one in Heppner, known (probably everywhere around the world) for two things: a very picturesque courthouse and a flood that 110 years ago went through town and killed 250 people. Besides it’s an Irish town so there is a huge shamrock on the main junction. We had a sandwich and coffee in the only open coffee place / gift shop with just about everything (Hi Daniel!) and we went on. Our second stop was to take a walk in Blue Mountain woods, there was a trail to a cave which was really a hole in the rock, used by some loggers in the past.

Courthouse in Heppner

We took a shortcut leaving Blue Mountain in Ukiah, just to take Hells Canyon Scenic Byway. We heard about it earlier, besides we invited ourselves to Linda from Boondockers Welcome, who lives nearby. Road runs in a shadow of Wallowa mountains which "summits covered in snow resemble Alps". Describing unknown by unknown - how many of readers of the paper from Oregonian Welcome Center have ever been to Alps?

By the way, we used to get annoyed by the Americans that they never travel anywhere outside the US. We changed our minds, when we saw how much there is to see. As six months are not enough for us to see even a small fraction of what we would like to see, how much time do you need? Besides there is almost everything here and usually it’s given in a very user-friendly way (although that makes all national parks way too crowded). Now if someone tells us they want to see Europe we say: who cares about that tiny boring peninsula, as there are so many beautiful places that one life is not enough to see it all. Just kidding. Please feel more than invited to Europe and first of all to Warsaw, PL.

Route to Hells Canyon starts with quite an interesting town, importand road and railroad hub and pretty big academic center - La Grande. We drove through it on Saturday, late in the afternoon. At first it looked deserted and very townish. We drove onto main street and from afar we saw a lady in her 40s and a few teenagers dancing on a little square. Mickey Mouse House Club on tour? When we got closer we saw a stage with long hair young guy growling and playing death-metal cover of one of the older Metallica hits. We love eclectism of small towns West of the Rockies. 

It is beautiful at Wallowa footihlls We don't really know how to compare it to Alps, as we spent just a few days in Alps, but they might look a bit alike. Our host had a deck with a view. If someone woud like to move there the price of a house with a deck (with a view) is comparable to the price of small apartament in Warsaw. Linda was a great host, we stayed two nights, we saw the area (we went to Wallowa Lake with a great mirror-view of the mountains over it, Maciek had a lot of fun throwing rocks into the water), we sat on the deck staring at the mountains and we emptied two bottles of wine talking by the fire.

We heard of Linda before. Long time ago, in Florida Lois and John told us about her. For a long time Linda wanted to buy a C-class, 25 ft or so. Finally she found one in Florida and she bought it on ebay. Lois and John told us how she was checking it out and then headed to Oregon with it. Now she can't wait to retire so she can finally start travelling more. Now she goes just on short week or weekend trips. She finds a free campsite somewhere far from civilized world. She likes adventures too: together with friends they built a ski lift, they can now use for free, another friend of hers organizes rafting on Snake River. We were her first Boondockers Welcome guests, we hope she'll have such good memories of our visit as we do.

From Alps of Oregon we headed to see a place that belongs to both Oregon and Idaho. It's Snake River and  Hells Canyon. First we went to see the canyon from high above. Not the best idea ever. There was a snow here and there, all we could see were mountains and to see the canyon you really have to use your imagination. Mountains were nice though. You can see Seven Devils on Idaho side from there. According to Indian legends Hells Canyon was carved by a coyote to protect Indians from seven devils that lived on Blue Mountain.

And the canyon itself is breathtaking. To see it we left our trailer at some camping parking and we took just the car. The road goes on the bottom of the canyon, not much over the water level, and gets to the dam. It's actually a second road. The first one is deep under water. Seeing the canyon we started wondering what the hell is wrong with people from Idaho, that they are so proud of their potatos and they don't even mention that place? Hells Canyon is deeper than Grand Canyon, plus we got to see it from inside. And it was amazing.

Canyon is just the beginning. Going north, Snake River is a few hundred miles far from civilization. You can go on and on and on and not see anyone. Which is not that common in the US except for a few places like New Mexico, central Nevada and couple more. Unfortunately it's a luxury too, we've seen an ad for "all-inclusive" trips starting at 200 USD per day. Probably it might be done cheaper. On part of the river some licences and/or certificates are probably required, but on some of it a permit from National Forest might be enough. A raft, good map and let's go! Let's just say that rafting on Snake River is now on our bucket list. 

We stayed overnight, following Linda's advice, on a free campsite by one of Snake River tributaries, heading south from scenic byway towards Boise. In capital city of Idaho we were going to visit our friends from Libya - Mel and Rob. We didn't feel like visiting the city. We just wanted to get organized, catch up with old friends, let Maciek play with Rocco, their son who is just a few months younger than our boy, and go on.