HELL'S CANYON

The rain, and clouds decided to move on down the road, so we decided to take a drive out to the Hell's Canyon Overlook, for a view of the deepest canyon in the U.S. The first two pictures are of Bob & Diana's home, on the outskirts of Enterprise, Oregon. They moved from California, within a few months of the time when we moved to Arizona back in 2002. Their home sits on 2 acres of beautifully manicured property, and it certainly shows pride of ownership. We always enjoy our visits with Bob & Diana, and look forward each year to seeing them, whether it's us traveling north, or them traveling south.


The drive out to the Hell's Canyon Overlook is about 40 miles from their home, through mostly National Forest. It was a really nice day, with beautiful scenery, and when we arrived at the overlook, the view down into the canyon is breath taking. The road is great for motorcycles, but not necessarily a large motor home road, so I'm glad we did the drive in Bob & Diana's new car.
On the drive back, as we rounded a corner, a large brown bear ran across the road, about a hundred feet in front of us. As it was about half way across the road, I said "it's a Grizzly". After it was out of sight, we all agreed that it had that distinctive hump behind it's head, however, according to a little research that I did this morning, there aren't supposed to be any Grizzly's in Oregon. Over the years, there have been reports of Grizzly's in the Hells Canyon Area, but nothing confirmed since about 1937. When we spent the summers in Alaska, particularly the years that I was a tour guide, I encountered hundreds of Black Bears, many of which were actually brown in color, and only a handful of Grizzly's. In fact, when we spotted a brown, Black Bear, I would have to correct the tourists, because they almost always proclaimed that it was a Grizzly Bear. After reading that Grizzly's haven't been confirmed in Oregon for many years, naturally, I began to question whether I mistakenly identified this bear as a Grizzly. It's certainly possible, because we only saw it for a few seconds, and as I was reaching for my camera, it disappeared over the bank. Because I was so sure it was a Grizzly, my instinct was to stay in the car, and not get out to try and possibly get a picture. We'll never know for sure, but, it definitely was the highlight of the day.