Drive to Canyon Pines just outside Riggins Idaho, we had a little bit of excitement on the way. All of a sudden we had some alarm going off in the RV, after checking the towing brake system, the tire pressure system and the GPS and it turned out it was Rob’s phone warning us that there were new wildfires and and road closures. luckily after some googling we realized that we would be ok if we stuck to our current route.
Really nice caravan park and we were able to book a jet boat trip for the next day. We went into town at 8am to sign our waivers and then drove a very interesting 30 plus miles up and over a very narrow and winding mountain road and down to the lower Pittsburgh landing, ready to board our boat. Here is what the website says about this route The 31.5-mile section of the river between Hells Canyon Dam and Upper Pittsburg Landing is designated as the Wild river section. Rapids vary from Class II to Class V. At the mouth of Granite Creek rapids, approximately seven miles downstream from Hells Canyon Dam, the river elevation is 1,480 feet. The canyon depth here is 7,913 feet when measured from He Devil Mountain, towering over Idaho’s Seven Devils range at 9,393 feet.
We stopped at one of the original homesteads, now a museum. Next stop was for lunch and so far we had only been a few of the gentler rapids and we had passed quite a few of the rafts coming down the river.
Further up the river, we got to see some of the local wild life and also the rapids were getting a lot bigger. in fact there was a non group boat that got itself stuck in the Cat V rapids on the rocks. according to our captain the water gets higher in the afternoon as the reservoir lets more water out, so the boat would either rise and float free or sink. Thank goodness it was the former.
Once we got to the reservoir we stopped to see the visitor centre and then turned around to go back to the landing, All of the rapids were much higher and with the wind blowing up the canyon we were getting soaked on the way back – lots of fun