This one minute and 44 second clip was filmed on Saturday, 31 July 2021 at the confluence of the Salmon and Snake Rivers during our jet boat tour of Hells Canyon.
The tour was conducted by Snake River Adventures. The weather was sweltering at well over 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43C ++). Luckily we stopped twice to swim in the cool water of the Snake.
In the clip our guide is describing how the Salmon river got its nickname of 'The River of No Return.' Basically, during the gold rush, there was great demand for provision of supplies to the mines along the river and small wooden boats would be constructed hundreds of miles upriver and used to float down and deliver. At the end of the journey there was no way to get the boat back up the Salmon so the boat would be disassembled and the wood sold off. New boats would be built for the next trip. Thus 'The River of No Return.'
Hells Canyon is a ten-mile-wide (16 km) canyon in the western United States, located along the border of eastern Oregon, a small section of eastern Washington and western Idaho. It is part of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area which is also located in part of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. It is North America's deepest river gorge at 7,993 feet (2,436 m). Notably, Hells Canyon runs deeper than the better-known Grand Canyon in Arizona.
The canyon was carved by the waters of the Snake River, which flows more than one mile (1.6 km) below the canyon's west rim on the Oregon side and 7,400 feet (2,300 m) below the peaks of Idaho's Seven Devils Mountains range to the east. This area includes 214,000 acres of wilderness. Most of the area is inaccessible by road.
