Hells Gate State Park

The park sits at the Snake’s mouth where the river leaves the plateau and enters the canyon country — the ‘gate’ that gives the park its name. The land was a Nez Perce fishing and camping ground, then the Lewis and Clark camp site of October 1805, then a 20th-century cattle and orchard bench. The state park was created in 1970s as the canyon’s gateway with the marina, campground and the interpretive trail through the camp sites; jetboat outfitters from the marina have run the canyon trips since the 1970s, and the park’s beach and day-use lawns anchor Lewiston’s riverfront summer. The park’s interpretive trail marks the expedition’s camp and the Nez Perce fishing grounds that preceded it, and the marina’s outfitters have run jetboat trips up the Snake into the canyon since the 1970s — the standard way most visitors see the deepest gorge in North America without a raft. The campground’s riverside sites fill through the summer jetboat and steelhead seasons.