TheSea Bird made its way through the four locks of the lower Snake River to dock for the day at Clarkston, Washington, across the river from Lewiston, Idaho. All our guests signed off the mother ship for the day to board two high-speed jet boats for a trip up through Hell's Canyon. The walls of columnar basalt, overlaid with a fine dusting of dry grass and creased by the occasional creek or canyon, appeared as if we had entered an ancient underwater volcano.
Our knowledgeable jet boat captain regaled us with stories of the boats lost to the rapids (now fairly tamed by the dams), lost mines and crooked saloon keepers. New wildlife sightings included Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep perched on impossibly steep hillsides and grazing by the river; a 5-plus foot white sturgeon, caught (and released by law); and a couple dozen (not-so) wild turkeys.
The confluence of the Grande Ronde, the Salmon and the Imnaha Rivers were reached and the passage ended at the Chief Joseph Crossing, more than 50 miles upriver. After a picnic lunch, we returned downriver, stopped briefly at the Buffalo Eddy to view ancient pictographs and petroglyphs. Then it was off to our luxurious floating home to enjoy recap, a sumptuous meal followed by an intellectual banquet entitled, "Fish That Change Sex and Other Things Jacques Cousteau Never Told You."
