Alan
04-19-2006, 02:57 PM
I spent an afternoon and a night in the Brownlee Dam Campground down inside of Hells Canyon on the NE Oregon/Idaho border. This campground is run by the power company that owns the dam! Even though the campground is privately owned, it is open to all. I had come from the east on RT 71 in Idaho and it wasn't until after I had labeled my pictures that I discovered that Brownlee Dam is actually in Oregon. So the labels have the wrong state, but only by a couple of miles.
The road in is very interesting and clings to the wall of the canyon, so I took it easy and enjoyed the ride down to the bottom of the canyon. For an official overview of Hells Canyon, go here: http://www.fs.fed.us/hellscanyon/overview/index.shtml
The road into the camp and inside of the campground is crushed rock, not bad, but I am uncomfortable riding my ST1300 on crushed rock. I survived the road without any problems and had plenty of sites available to pick from. The sites are all the same and lined up in a row side by side. In the background of picture #45 you can just see the shower and restroom facility. The daily fee two years ago was $7.00. This campground is nice and clean but boring unless you are a fisherman. Most of the campers are there for the fishing at the dam. I was just looking for a place to spend the night so felt it was a reasonable place to camp. I don't remember the exact temperature at the campground, but it was hot during the afternoon.
I left real early the following morning, I run on eastern time, so when I'm out west, I tend to leave campgrounds between 5 and 6 AM local time. Usually everyone else in the campground is still sleeping. The neat thing about leaving early is I sometimes get to see some interesting wildlife. About 10 minutes after leaving the Brownlee Dam campsite, I came across a Rocky Mountain goat standing the the middle of the road looking at me. The ride out of Hells Canyon on RT 86 to Baker City was interesting. Besides the road climbing up the wall of the canyon, I came across a Mormon Cricket migration crossing the road. This was the first time I had seen such a thing and there were 10's of thousands of these big bugs walking or hopping across the road. At times the road was so slimey with smashed Mormon Crickets that I slowed way down for fear of losing the bike. An almost surreal experience.
The road in is very interesting and clings to the wall of the canyon, so I took it easy and enjoyed the ride down to the bottom of the canyon. For an official overview of Hells Canyon, go here: http://www.fs.fed.us/hellscanyon/overview/index.shtml
The road into the camp and inside of the campground is crushed rock, not bad, but I am uncomfortable riding my ST1300 on crushed rock. I survived the road without any problems and had plenty of sites available to pick from. The sites are all the same and lined up in a row side by side. In the background of picture #45 you can just see the shower and restroom facility. The daily fee two years ago was $7.00. This campground is nice and clean but boring unless you are a fisherman. Most of the campers are there for the fishing at the dam. I was just looking for a place to spend the night so felt it was a reasonable place to camp. I don't remember the exact temperature at the campground, but it was hot during the afternoon.
I left real early the following morning, I run on eastern time, so when I'm out west, I tend to leave campgrounds between 5 and 6 AM local time. Usually everyone else in the campground is still sleeping. The neat thing about leaving early is I sometimes get to see some interesting wildlife. About 10 minutes after leaving the Brownlee Dam campsite, I came across a Rocky Mountain goat standing the the middle of the road looking at me. The ride out of Hells Canyon on RT 86 to Baker City was interesting. Besides the road climbing up the wall of the canyon, I came across a Mormon Cricket migration crossing the road. This was the first time I had seen such a thing and there were 10's of thousands of these big bugs walking or hopping across the road. At times the road was so slimey with smashed Mormon Crickets that I slowed way down for fear of losing the bike. An almost surreal experience.