Hells Gate State Park

We drove down to Clarkston / Lewiston on Thursday morning.   Here is a picture of one of the first signs we saw in Clarkston.  Headed over to the local Costco to fuel up and maybe pick up some groceries .  The fill-up there was easy, but the parking lot was small and filled with cars, so we headed down to the campground.  Along the way we thought we would stop at a roadside rest on the Snake River road, but that was not such a great idea.  It was tight to get in and turned out to be full, so we had no where to park.  To make matters worse, they had placed large rocks at the entrance and exit to the lot; so getting back out was too tight and we had to unhook the car so I could back up and get a better angle to get out. (otherwise one of the rocks would scrape a bit of the new paint, and I wasn’t going to be happy if I let that happen!)

The reason I wanted to find a roadside stop was the state park wouldn’t let you check in prior to 2 pm, and now we were early due to the missed grocery shopping opportunity.   Turns out the park’s kiosk wasn’t where you check in to that campground and we were able to drive to their “Discovery Center” parking lot and park there till the check-in desk opened.

I drove over to see the campsite while we were waiting, and it was surrounded by wild turkeys and a couple deer.   There was also a nice big shade tree strategically placed for great shade to sit outside!

I wanted to take one of the local jet boats into Hell’s Canyon, but the only day they had available was Sunday, and Windy.com showed it was going to be very smoky there that day, so I didn’t sign up.  Maybe next time…  And on Sunday the smoke was very thick.  Glad I didn’t drop the $200, would have been a lot like the bus at Denali, hard to see anything due to all the smoke that day.

This weight limit sign inside the campground, just prior to any of the campsite loops, was interesting.  The weight limit listed precludes most Class A motorhomes as the rear axle is usually 20,000 lbs (10 tons) , and newer ones are often 24,000 lbs (12 tons).  So the 8.6 ton limit would be an issue. Also noticed the other weight limits listed for more axles don’t follow the 8.6 tons per axle limit.  Possibly they aren’t teaching basic math in schools anymore.

Our next stop will be Crow Butte Park on an Island in the Columbia River.