The beautiful Salmon River - 9/16/17

[justpeachy]

The last hike we did before the rain arrived - when it was still too smoky for a view hike - was along the Salmon River Trail. I did this hike once a few years back, but Greg had never done it.




Fall colors hadn't started yet and the forest was still pretty green, albeit bone dry.






There were all these notices about not camping within a quarter mile of the road. They were EVERYWHERE:






The trail is at river level for the first couple miles:






There are some big trees back in here!






The trail ambles along through the forest with occasional glimpses of the river. There are numerous campsites.














The trail climbs up above the river and after about 3.2 miles there is a viewpoint looking down into the canyon. It's pretty brown this time of year:






The canyon is deep and rugged here. Can you believe that there was a proposal in the 1960s to dam the river and build a highway through here? Now the river is a Wild & Scenic River and this area is part of the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness.






We sat and enjoyed a snack, although it was VERY windy here.




Looking down on the viewpoint before heading back down:




There are some waterfalls down in that canyon. It's rugged terrain down there and the falls are inaccessible. However in the summer of 1963, a subcommittee of the Oregon Geographic Names Board made a trek here and somehow managed to get down to those falls. (Read more about it here.) Final Falls:




Frustration Falls:




A few years ago some kayakers ran the canyon and Oregon Field Guide set them up with cameras to film the expedition. Here's the segment: http://watch.opb.org/video/2365203222/


And finally here's my video of this hike:

[Chip Down]

That's a nice trail. You know, as trails go.

It's pretty brown this time of year

Cheryl, I hope you don't mind me barging into your TR with my own picture, but I hope people will find it interesting to see the same site under different conditions:

[justpeachy]

Oh wow, yeah that's definitely pretty different! I've never hike along any part of the Salmon River in snow, but I bet it's pretty.

[leiavoia]

Interesting factoid: if you check out the various rocky bald spots on the high points, you can find geodes and small crystals embedded in the rock.

[romann]

Nice pictures of the river - color really shows better when water is low and calm like this. One of my favorite forest hikes in winter & early spring, now see a lot of maples in your pictures - maybe in 2-3 weeks will be a good time for fall color.. That low-lying area right after trailhead they closed to camping (it becomes a real island, when river runs higher) - glad to see that because there were lots of trash. Forest floor looks like they cleaned everything pretty thoroughly? Hope it will become less practical to haul chairs/coolers/etc much farther up the trail.

Went to the article on old photos' link - wow, I never knew this:

it is also hard to imagine that in the 1960s, the federal government was planning to dam the Salmon River to harness the power of these waterfalls, and in building a new trans-Cascade highway through the gorge.
Thankfully, these plans were never realized, and the creation of the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness in 1984 forever protected the river from such "progress".