Cambridge, Idaho

Plunged into Hell today and wound up running from it. Hells Canyon, the deepest schism in the North American crust, created images of sharp-sided canyon walls, darkness and a stark landscape in my mind. Adding to my pre-ride anxiety was the warning from the locals about the “really big climb” out of the canyon on the Idaho side.

The canyon was spectacular but not in my imagined manner of Tim Burton. The canyon sides ranged to the sky, way, way up there. They were soft, almost loaf-like and from the distance of the canyon floor covered with green velveteen.

We crossed into ID at Brownlee Dam, changed our watches to Mountain Time, and I started a 13-mile climb to Brownlee Summit (4,131’).What a sight to see Dee at the top. She had set up two folding chairs by the roadside where we lunched surveying the summit.

The route followed the course of Brownlee Creek as it plunged down into Hell’s Canyon. Like all the other rivers, creeks, rivulets, etc. we’ve encountered in Eastern Oregon and this part of Idaho, the Brownlee was straining it banks. Whole trees, root balls intact, clogged portions of the flow. Large dam-like debris dumps of trees, branches, weeds and rocks slow the waters’ flow. There has been so much once-in-a-life time flooding that the state are applying for federal disaster aid.

As I headed down the mountain, a murderously dark gray cloud rose above me. Thunder rumbled in the distance. A few rain drops splashed my face. I leaned over the handlebars, a la the racing pros, and sped downward. On the flats coming into Cambridge I pedaled like a madman and made it just to a motel just in time. The Brits were not so lucky; they were pummeled by the storm.

We were in the Salubrious Valley, so named by an emigrant in the 1830s who declared the area to be “salubrious.” Up sprang the town of Salubria, ID. Along came a railroad company wanting to serve the valley. It bought track rights through ranches until it ran into one obstinate land owner. He woman refused to sell so the railroad company relocated its track. Within a couple of years Salubrious had died, there is nothing left of it today, not even a rock, and Cambridge was created along the railroad line. This we learned at the impressive little Cambridge museum.