Three Ways In

The first road was a trail.

Paved hard and long by paw, hoof and foot, it dropped into the canyon from the north plateau etching its way along near-vertical hillsides descending to gentler slopes studded with bunch grasses, lupine, mule’s ear, sagebrush and phlox. The narrow path yielded to formidable chunks of basalt -- sharp-angled and menacing like giant rock cactuses -- buoyed by dry, sandy soil. Lichens of muted greens and grays held tight to hard surfaces.

Nimi’ipuu (later named Nez Perce by French trappers) men used to cross the saddle near what is now Soldier Hollow taking the trail into the canyon in early spring and again in winter to hunt deer, sheep, goat, and bear. Along the warm, open south aspects and in the bottomland, women gathered berries, biscuit root, camas bulbs, wild carrot and wild potato.

The twelve-foot wide stream that cleaved this place over millions of years bristled with native trout and offered a fertile spawning ground for salmon after an 800-mile swim. The brisk waters rushed high and hard through the spring snowmelt.

Searing summer heat better suited for the Sonoran Desert cued the Nimi’ipuu to seek higher grounds where they could continue gathering – gooseberries, huckleberries, hawthorn berries, currants and service berries – and hunting the game that flowed with the ripening plants.

This was the way until 1855. That year, beyond the canyon and the horizon of the Nez Perce, men of the U.S. government drew up and offered a treaty to the people. The agreement was brokered, accepted and later broken by the authors. Two decades later came a similar parchment worth every bit its weight in federal thievery. However, this treaty -- to further funnel the people from their homes in north-central Idaho and northeastern Oregon and on to truncated terrain at Lapwai – met opposition, especially among the Wallowa band.

Defying U.S. hegemony and a culture that offered no peace to their puzzle, hundreds of Nez Perce walked over a thousand miles to find the freedom taken from them. Changing times and arbitrary boundaries put that concept out of reach. Their road reached the end of the earth at the base of the Bear Paw Mountains in Montana. The good life was over, for good.

And the canyon was silent.

* * * * *

The second road was a river.

At the Lewiston landing a wooden craft, the bow pointed upstream, due south, ferried the first white settlers to the canyon. For those living in more urban confines, the nation’s Great Depression had resurrected the allure and independence of the homestead.

Seventy river miles from their previous lives, a dozen feet of a singular family stepped from the boat onto polished river stone and ancient layers of volcanic ash of the east bank, certain the sun would rise. Following the creek up canyon, they planned to secure a lifestyle where providing dinner would be governed by the forces of nature rather than the forces of the free market.

A permanent life there was hard.

Breaking sod was more like quarry work. And although the canyon was generous in seasonal plant foods, harvesting and processing roots and bulbs required knowledge not so easily gained in city life.

But they had seeds for vegetables and fruit trees. And livestock. A few head of cattle could graze well without risking their not-so-nimble necks in the treacherous high ground. Milled lumber was boated from Lewiston and dragged by teams of horse and mule up canyon for over a mile to the homesite.

A solid two-story structure void of imagination, comprised almost entirely of right angles, and yet equipped with the first flush toilet in Idaho County, was completed in the late 1930s. The barn was as big and bland as the house. This life held little time for creativity.

By 1955 the homestead was vacant.


* * * * *

The third road was a lie.

A sharp cut started about a mile in from the northeast rim of the canyon. By steel blade and diesel engine a swath wide enough for two trucks ripped its way from the hard-packed dirt county road, leveling Douglass firs and Red cedars nestled in the draw, up to the open knoll of the plateau.

In 1995 I drove my low-clearance, two-wheel drive car this far and parked. I was advised such vehicles should go no farther.

Before strapping on my backpack, I walked several yards to the west, and crossed a barbed-wire fence to get a more vivid view of my future -- the northern reaches of Hell’s Canyon. With no expression I stared down into Getta Creek canyon. I was curious, not captivated.

To me the landscape seemed inverted. The ridges and plateaus met the sky flat, like a calm sea, The creek bottoms were tight, jagged, like mountains upside-down.

Getta Creek and its canyon, along with dozens of counterparts, attached like ribs to the spine of the Snake River running north to the Columbia. The high desert was an alien to me.

The dirt road, contoured with 18-inch waterbars, eased over the knoll switch-backing about a quarter mile down. From my vantage point it vanished beneath the ridge about twenty yards past the turn.

For sale in the canyon were 70 acres of creek-split land somewhere below, west of me, and at the end of the road. I was invited to join a group of fellow primitive skills instructors who were forming an intentional community. There was a two-acre garden, over five hundred generous fruit trees – the homesteader legacy – and berry patches the size of supermarkets.

I was fleeing a civilization built on coal power plants, plastic, and slick marketing.

The steepest wall of the canyon was before me. The road hugged it, looking like a scratch in its side. I imagined one day the scratch would heal and our car culture would be shut out of Getta Creek canyon. I wondered what my girlfriend would think of this place. I wondered what I thought of this place. I walked.

The pitch was so steep I had to peer from the edge of the road to glimpse the ground immediately below. Like a string of beads, deciduous trees snaked along the canyon bottom camouflaging Getta Creek fifteen hundred feet down.

What it lacked in engineering and design, the Getta Creek canyon road made up for in arrogance.

Now a mile or so from the creek the road laid over craggy bedrock, maintaining its brutal descent. I was only half-way to the cabin and already hated the road. But where else would I be able to live this life? The good life.

Later, I ignored the sensibilities of the woman who would later become my wife. Money was saved, money was borrowed, and my share of the land was purchased in 1996. My home was a canvas wall tent as I cleared ground to build a straw bale cabin. I worked hard to convince myself I loved it. Two hours from the nearest town would be tolerable isolation.

Within two years heavy spring rains and record snowmelt did their part to correct the lie. Unable to withstand the deluge, the road slumped several feet down the hillside at its most treacherous section, and down below Getta jumped its banks washing every speck of dirt from the road for over a mile. The flood left gouges in the road four-feet deep and twice the length of anyone’s truck.

Surveying the damage, I now acknowledged the truth. That road wasn’t meant to be. Nor was I meant to be here. Besides, a “model” sustainable community has nothing to model if no one can access it.

That July, two weeks after proposing to my girlfriend beneath a towering Ponderosa pine shading our future homesite, I went the way of the Nez Perce and the homesteaders before me. Each of us traveling different roads into the canyon and each of us, with our own reasons, taking different roads out.

— Brad Hash writes from Missoula, Montana, where he and his wife annually break plans to visit their property they still own in Getta Creek canyon.