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Hells Canyon Trip

I just got off a Snake River Hells Canyon trip last weekend. We ran from Hells Canyon Dam to Pittsburgh Landing in four days with flows from 17,000 CFS to just under 28,000 CFS with temperatures in the 90's during the day and 60's at night. It was a great run for a canoe. I took my Caption and never felt out gunned by the water. The run is very pool drop in nature with big recovery stretches. The water is huge, but not chaotic. The best analog I can think of is the Grand Canyon or the Thompson River below the Frog. The hardest part was the boils, eddylines, and the up canyon winds on day one. The two biggest rapids are Wild Sheep and Granite Rapids. Wild Sheep is a easy class IV- or class III+. At our level I ran right down the middle over the big horizon line that looks like a big hole (it is not around 26,000 CFS, but you might want to double check at other levels!). This put me in some big roller coaster waves toward the bottom that were nice and stable. I never swamped. The alternate run was down the left working right through some big crashing haystacks. To me it looked safer, but it had a narrower margin of error. Granite was legitimate big water class IV. The main line was down the center left moving hard left to avoid a hole and the left edge of a huge crashing curler in the center. The other two lines where down the right through some big crashing waves. I took the center line through the "Green Room." This line went over a huge submerged rock in river center, split the difference between the two big curlers and run the big waves down the middle. For a canoe the Green line looked the best. Everything else had very obvious easy lines down big waves. Definitely a worthwhile canoe trip. Kyle