Although Hell Gate is a long ways from being the worst rapid on the Columbia, it comes pretty near to qualifying as the worst looking rapid. A long black reef, jutting out from the left bank, chokes the river into a narrow channel and forces it over against the rocky wall on the right. It shoots between these obstructions with great velocity, only to split itself in two against a big rock island a hundred yards farther down. The more direct channel is to the right, but it is too narrow to be of use. The main river, writhing like a wounded snake after being bounced off the sheer wall of the island, zigzags on through the black basaltic barrier in a course shaped a good deal like an elongated letter “Z.” Hell Gate is very much like either the Great or Little Dalles would be if a jog were put into it by an earthquake—a rapid shaped like a flash of lightning, and with just as much kick in it.
After much climbing and scrambling over rocks, Roos found a place about half way down the left side of the jagged gorge from which he could command the raft rounding the first leg of the “Z” and running part of the second leg. It would have taken a half dozen machines to cover the whole run through, but the place he had chosen was the one which would show the most one camera could be expected to get. It would miss entirely the main thing—the fight to keep the raft from bumping the rock island and splitting in two like the river did. That could not be helped, however. A set up in a place to catch that would have caught very little else, and we desired to show something of the general character of the gorge and rapid. Roos, solacing himself with the remark to the effect that, if the raft did break up, probably the biggest part of the wreck would come down his side, was cutting himself a “sylvan frame” through the branches of a gnarled old screw pine as we left him to go to the launch.
IKE RIDING A LOG (left)
IKE ON THE MOORING LINE OF THE RAFT (right)
RAFT IN TOW OF LAUNCH NEAR MOUTH OF SAN POIL (above)
IKE AT THE SWEEP BELOW HELL GATE (below)
Ike was sitting on the bank talking with a couple of men from the farm-house when we got back to the raft. He had completed the sweep, he said, but as he had forgotten to provide any “pin” to hang it on he didn’t quite know what to do. Perhaps we had better go up to the farm-house and have dinner first, and then maybe he would think of something. The thought of keeping Roos—whom I had seen on the verge of apoplexy over a half minute delay once he was ready for action—standing with crooked elbow at his crank, waiting an hour or more for the raft to shoot round the bend the next second, struck me as so ludicrous that I had to sit down myself to laugh without risk of rolling into the river. When I finally got my breath and sight back, I found Earl’s ready mind had hit upon the idea of using the hickory adze-handle as a pivot for the sweep and that he and Ike were already rigging it. Ten minutes later the launch had swung the raft out into the current and we were headed for Hell Gate.