TBE: Hell's Canyon, Chinese Massacre Cove, and the Escape of the Nez Perce

To Be Explored. Sometimes I go down a rabbit hole, zooming into Google Earth. Stretched out between maps and history books, perhaps I'll never be able to trace these stories. And perhaps I will.

Today's rabbit hole traces the interwining stories of three peoples - The native Nez Perce, the exploited Chinese miners, the white pioneers - through the most remote of landscapes, up a mountain pass called "The Land at Eden's Gate", down into the depth of a place literally called "Hell's Canyon", and through brush of unmaintained trails to find the places where blood was spilled in nature's majesty.

60 miles on a forest road from the tiny town of Joseph, Oregon, then an 8 mile hike through dense bramble - is the only way overland to arrive at Chinese Massacre Cove on Deep Creek in Wallowa Whitehead National Forest. It is here where 34 Chinese miners were ambushed and slaughtered for their gold in 1887. A small monument was erected in 2012 but soon became inaccessible as the hiking trail became consumed by wilderness and overgrowth.

10 miles upstream, only 10 yrs prior to the Deep Creek Massacre, Chief Joseph led his people down Hell's Canyon and across the Snake River in a desperate attempt to escape the US reservation system. The heartwrenching story of the Nez Perce Trail begins in Wallowa and traces the 1877 route of 2900 Nez Perce fleeing from the US Calvary in an attempt to escape to Canada and avoid relocation to reservations in Oklahoma and Kansas. The group was 40 miles from freedom before they were forced to surrender at Bear Paw Battlefield in Montana.

The Wallowa range stretches from height of Sacajawea Peak, 9,838 ft into the sky, to the depth of Hell's Canyon, 7,993 ft into the ground. Starting from the surface, it's like digging deeper into the history of the West. The road, too, goes from wide and paved to twisting gravel to mountain path, and finally to a hiking trail lost to overgrowth. From Portland or Boise, I could drive to La Grande. From La Grande, I could follow the Cycle Oregon Route to Halfway (for a brief time renamed Half.com for a dot com boom publicity stunt). From there, it's up 7000 feet to across Hell's Canyon viewpoint to Joseph, OR, where, as quoted from 50 Places to Bike Before You Die "You gaze across deep, rolling canyon lands, including that remarkable gash carved by the Snake River...Suddenly, the entire Wallowa Valley spreads out below, the wind dancing across the prairie and  the sun beginning to set behind the Eagle Caps.  It’s as if the whole history of the American West is laid out there before you, the place the pioneers called ‘The Land at Eden’s Gate’."

The town named after Chief Josheph is one mile north of Wallowa Lake, situated in the "Oregon Alps". A million miles from NYC, just camping here with the lake and the stars would be a dream of mine. There's also art galleries and brewpubs for a modernity break before the rabbit hole gets deeper. From there, it's 30 miles the canyon outpost at Imnaha, and then nothing but winding, twisting wilderness into the Canyon. Getting to the Nez Perce crossing at Dug Bar seems ridable but I'm not sure of the conditions. I've found one beautiful trip report that takes a sketchy dirt trail down and paywalled gravel map touting 10,000 ft of climbing. If I make it there, that's only the trailhead to an 8 mile hiking trail to the Chinese Massacre Site, deep in the wilderness - a hiking trail that may or may not exist. Advance organizing is required with a local trail organization and the parks department to ensure the trail from Dug Bar to Chinese Massacre cove is cleared.

For now, while instagrammers dream of resorts and lounge chairs on the beach, Wallowa and the Hell's Canyon Descent is my bucket list.

Reading List:

  • “Massacred for Gold” by R Gregory Nokes
  • “Thunder in the Mountains: Chris Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War” by Daniel Sharfstien
  • "Deep Creek" by Dana Hand

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