Hell’s Canyon
Today we enjoyed a trip up the deepest gorge in North America, Hell’s Canyon. We left the Sea Bird and boarded two powerful jet boats for a trip over 50 miles south up the river to just beyond the confluence of the Snake and the Salmon rivers. Along the way we saw rocky mountain big horn sheep, great blue herons, mule deer, and even a few wild turkeys. This was, however a day of geology. The beginning of the trip was a transverse through relatively young basalt layers of 5 to 10 million years old. The southern part of the trip was through much older material. Some cliffs were made up of sediments as old as 250 million years old. The limestone in the picture were deposited on the ocean floor even before the age of the dinosaurs. The day gave us quite an exposure to the unique nature of the Snake River in Hell’s Canyon.
Today we enjoyed a trip up the deepest gorge in North America, Hell’s Canyon. We left the Sea Bird and boarded two powerful jet boats for a trip over 50 miles south up the river to just beyond the confluence of the Snake and the Salmon rivers. Along the way we saw rocky mountain big horn sheep, great blue herons, mule deer, and even a few wild turkeys. This was, however a day of geology. The beginning of the trip was a transverse through relatively young basalt layers of 5 to 10 million years old. The southern part of the trip was through much older material. Some cliffs were made up of sediments as old as 250 million years old. The limestone in the picture were deposited on the ocean floor even before the age of the dinosaurs. The day gave us quite an exposure to the unique nature of the Snake River in Hell’s Canyon.
