Hell’s Canyon

Sometimes the pleasure of adding something new to your experience is so great that your enthusiasm knows no bounds. As we travel in the Wake of Lewis and Clark on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, we have many opportunities to do this. Today we traveled by jet boat up into Hells Canyon. Rocky cliffs soaring skyward, swirling water making standing waves on the river, golden eagles, bighorn sheep, ravens, magpies, mergansers, great blue herons, all conspire to hold us in their web. As we stopped for a break at Cache Creek the wildflowers called to us. Of course it was important to photograph the phlox.

But is a photograph enough. Is it a tenth of the thing – or a hundredth? Is it anything without capturing the sunlight and shadow, the aroma of the blossom, the smell of newly crushed grass as we kneel to take the picture? Is it enough without getting sand in our shoes, and an appetite that can only be appeased with a delicious lunch?

AAAH! But we got all that too. It is etched forever on the delicate emulsion of our memories.