Set out on foot or by car to see the dramatic cliffs, mountain peaks, vistas and thousands of acres of precious wildlife big and small. It’s part of the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, the deepest river gorge in North America. Twelve miles away from the Lick Creek Campground, Hidden Campground provides 10 spaces at a small, rustic site for tent campers and trailers along the upper Imnaha River. Spend your day chasing trout, swimming in the bracing waters or venturing off into the adjacent Eagle Cap Wilderness on the Lick Creek Trail. Pitch a tent at the lightly used Lick Creek Campground, open June through September, with seven tent-only sites and five sites that can accommodate a camper trailer. When Dan Sizer isn’t running luxury backcountry trips for his Baker City-based company, Go Wild: American Adventures, you can find him relaxing among shady pines and casting a fly line into the South Fork of the Imnaha River.

Grab one of the 35 sites, 14 of which are walk-in tent sites, at the park’s Lone Tree Campground, open year-round, and wander upstream along the Pinnacles Trail for about 4 miles. Make your way about 40 miles upstream from the river’s confluence with the Columbia near Condon and you’ll find Cottonwood Canyon State Park, Oregon’s newest. Summer temps can be blistering here, but fall brings some much-needed sanity, making it an ideal time to go. The John Day River counts as one of America’s longest free-flowing rivers, a 252-mile ribbon of liquid compassion that muscles its way through a wild and scenic canyon country so colorful it would make Georgia O’Keefe drool.

Explore the John Day River Canyon Country

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