Hells Canyon, Heavenly Views

Even while dangling in midair, I was indeed on a road trip. I had set out two days earlier to explore the beautiful Hells Canyon Scenic Byway. Designated as an All American Road, it’s a 208-mile loop tucked away in the far northeastern corner of Oregon. Already my trusty car and I had meandered east on Oregon Route 86 from Baker City to the Snake River, stopping to take in the extraordinary three-state view at the Hells Canyon Overlook, and then cut across the Eagle Cap Wilderness on Forest Road 39. In the morning, the last day of my trip, I would leave Wallowa Lake to set out on Oregon Route 82, heading west to La Grande.

The ride up the Wallowa Lake Tramway took 15 minutes. From way up there, I could see where I had been and where I was going. But it was not with the objective eye of a navigator that I looked out over the now-familiar mountains and valleys. No, I saw the dramatic landscape with the educated eye of a road tripper.

My road trip style has changed considerably since I was a kid. Back then I was my family’s self-described “road-ent.” My twitching nose was always stuck in a road map to make sure our fully loaded station wagon got swiftly from point A to point B. Now, I might as well have a bumper sticker that reads, “I brake for historical markers.” Ditto for roadside attractions, minuscule museums, country stores and the like. There’s just so much to see and learn between point A and point B!

By the time I stood atop Mt. Howard, I had not just traversed Hells Canyon country, I had experienced it. Already I had a pretty good feel for the region’s history and the various people who had passed by or populated this land. And, through my conversations with the folks who live here, I understood the landscape’s lasting allure.

My journey began literally in the footsteps of the Oregon Trail pioneers. Ruts left more than 150 years ago by the steel-rimmed wooden wheels of covered wagons are still visible across the sage-covered hills east of Baker City. Near the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, high atop Flagstaff Hill,

I stopped to read the brass plaque on an Oregon Trail Memorial, a rock pillar erected in 1943 to commemorate the centennial of the westward migration.

It was not long after the pioneers reached Oregon that the place really began looking like the Promised Land to them. Gold was discovered in 1861 near what is now Baker City. The streets were not paved with gold, but gold mines and mining towns soon lined nearly every road. The now lonely stretches of road linked prosperous towns such as Pine and Cornucopia.

Those two towns were what gave Halfway its name, because Halfway, of course, was between them. Ironically, the only one of the three towns to make a name for itself was the one without a real name of its own. In 2000, Halfway made international news by taking the name Half.com for one year to help advertise an Internet company of the same name. Now it’s known as America’s first dot-com city.

In Halfway I spent the first night of my road trip at the Pine Valley Lodge (541-742-2027; www.pvlodge.com). Like most places in this corner of Oregon, there is quite a story behind it. The owners, Dale and Babette Beatty, came to Halfway from Florida for a visit and ended up staying. She is a former international fashion model from Berlin and was the cover girl for Sports Illustrated’s first swimsuit issue, in 1964.

Both artists, the Beattys set to work transforming three old houses into lodging, and an old church into a restaurant (now an art gallery where Babette serves breakfast to overnight guests). Dale, a woodworker with a strong sense of whimsy, created and enhanced furniture for the rooms. Babette, a painter, added her creative touch to designs on fabric and lampshades.

I wondered if this former jetsetter ever got bored in a tiny town of 333 residents. Babette had just served me a fruit plate and homemade scone in the gallery, whose walls are lined with her colorful portraits and still lifes. “No,” she answered without hesitation, while wrapping a large painting to be shipped to a customer. “There’s plenty to do in Halfway. Besides, we have our art.”

For Babette, the closest “big” city (it’s all relative) is Joseph, population 1,130, about 63 miles away. The direct route, Forest Road 39, which rises high into the glacier-capped Wallowa Mountains, is closed during winter. Before I set out on it on a sunny day, I wanted to get a feel, literally, for the Snake River, the relentless stream of water that carved out Hells Canyon.

I drove about 15 miles to Oxbow, on the west bank of the Snake, once a notoriously uncivilized boomtown called Copperfield. In 1914, Oregon Gov. Oswald West sent his 5-foot-3-inch, 24-year-old secretary, Fern Hobbs, to restore order. Within the space of one hour, the formidable Miss Hobbs declared martial law, arrested the city officials and confiscated all six-shooters.

These days, the tiny town is rather sedate and attracts mostly anglers and other sportsmen. I waded in the river before crossing the bridge into Idaho and following the riverside road to the Hells Canyon Dam and the visitors’ center, where jet boats and rafts depart. Below the dam, for 70 miles north to the Washington state line, the Snake is a National Wild and Scenic River.

Enormous basalt peaks loom high above the river here, making this the deepest river gorge in the country, deeper by about 1,000 feet than even the Grand Canyon.
I got a better feel for the topographic ups and downs at the Hells Canyon Overlook, on a short turnout from Forest Road 39. From this high vantage point, the canyon seems to stretch on forever. In fact, its average width is 10 miles.

As my car descended the mountain road, I saw the verdant Wallowa Valley before me. This was the beloved homeland of the Nez Perce Indians. In fact, Wallowa is a Nez Perce word, meaning fish trap. Without the Nez Perces’ generous help, the Lewis and Clark expedition, its members near starvation after crossing the Rockies, likely would have failed. But the Indians’ kindness was forgotten when gold was discovered on their land.

In 1877, the U.S. government ordered them out. The tribe tried to flee to safety in Canada along what is now the 1,350-mile National Historic Nee Me Poo Trail, but they were captured by the cavalry in Montana. That’s when Chief Joseph spoke the famous words, “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

Soon I was driving through Joseph, the town named after the valiant chief and the burial place of his father, Chief Joseph the Elder. On nearly every corner of Main Street there is a large bronze statue, sculpted by one of seven local artists and cast at one of the town’s three foundries. Joseph, with a gallery or two on nearly every block, has become synonymous with bronze art.

At the south end of town is beautiful Wallowa Lake, carved by glaciers thousands of years ago. I followed the road along the eastern shore of the six-mile-long lake until I reached the historic Wallowa Lake Lodge (541-432-9821;www.wallowalakelodge.com). It was built in 1923 and the room décor reflects that era, with antiques and framed vintage prints. Admiring the view of the lake from the back porch, I saw plenty of deer walking fearlessly among the tourists, and screeching bald eagles perched on huge treetop nests at water’s edge.

The next day, fully recovered from the tramway ride (open late May to Sept. 30, weather permitting), I headed west on Oregon Route 82 toward La Grande, stopping frequently to read historical markers, visit cafes and even tour a restored 1912 opera house in Elgin. The charming towns of Union and Cove were highlights of my auto tour.

In Cove I stopped to see the beautiful Ascension Chapel, a tiny white Episcopal church with flying buttresses, bright red trim and a stained glass window that was brought around the Horn for the church’s construction in 1869. In Union, before lunch at the historic Union Hotel (built in 1923), I drove up and down Main Street to admire Victorian homes and stately old buildings, including the town’s 1912 Carnegie Library.

On the road back to La Grande I passed the remains of Hot Lake Resort, once a glamorous vacation spot, now an empty, dilapidated building. Like those wagon ruts driven into the earth near Baker City, there’s a good story behind the resort. As a seasoned road tripper, I can safely say that there almost always is.

For more information on traveling in Eastern Oregon go to www.eova.com.