On July 31, 1976 conservation history was made where the fast-flowing Snake River in Hells Canyon forms the border between Oregon and Idaho. Here a ceremony is held on the Oregon rim to dedicate the new Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. This dedication prohibited any future dams in the canyon and designated the Middle Snake Wild River and Hells Canyon Wilderness Area. This is the story of how this dedication came to be.

During the depression days of the early 1930s the Jordan family-Len Jordan (later governor of Idaho and a United States senator), his wife Grace, and their three small children-moved to an Idaho sheep ranch in the Snake River gorge just below Hell's Canyon, deepest scratch on the face of North America. "Cut off from the world for months at a time, the Jordans became virtually self-sufficient. Short of cash but long on courage, they raised and preserved their food, made their own soap, and educated their children."-Sterling North, New York World-Telegram "Home Below Hell's Canyon is valuable because it writes a little-known way of life into the national chronicle. We are put in touch with the kind of people who set the country on its feet and in the generations since have kept it there. . . . Primarily it is a book of courage and effort tempered by the warmth of those who trust in goodness and practice it."-Christian Science Monitor "The thrilling story of a modern pioneer family. . . . An intensely human account filled with fun, courage and rich family life."-Seattle Post Intelligencer

In the early seventies, some of us were shot like stars from our parents' homes. This was an act of nature, bigger than ourselves. In the austere beauty and natural reality of Hell's Canyon of Eastern Oregon, one hundred miles from pavement, Pam, unable to identify with her parent's world and looking for deeper pathways has a chance encounter with returning Vietnam warrior Skip Royes. Skip, looking for a bridge from survival back to connection, introduces Pam to the vanishing culture of the wandering shepherd and together they embark on a four–year sojourn into the wilderness. From the back of a horse, Pam leads her packstring of readers from overlook to water crossing, down trails two thousand years old, and from the vantages she chooses for us, we feel the edges of our own experiences. It is a memoir of falling in love with a place and a man and the price extracted for that love. Written with deep lyricism, Temperance Creek is a work of haunting beauty, fresh and irreverent and rooted in the grit and pleasure of daily life. This is Pam's story, but the courage and truth in the telling is part of our human experience. Seen through a slower more primary mirror, one not so crowded with objectivity, Pam's memoir, is a kind of home–coming, a family reunion for shooting stars.

In this book, the first written on the geology of Hells Canyon, a world-class scientist tells the story of the deepest gorge on the North American continent. Born as islands in the Pacific Ocean, the rocks in Hells Canyon moved slowly northward with the North American continent after it broke loose from the Pangea supercontinent. Finally, the islands collided with the North American continent and were zippered to it. Bathed again by the sea, deeply eroded, and subsequently covered beneath a mile of lava flows, the entire area was lifted by, and along, large faults. In addition to telling the geologic history of the canyon, the book includes a mile-by-mile guide to the major features of Hells Canyon. A glossary and an annotated bibliography also complement the author's narrative along with his personal reminiscences and more than 100 photographs, many in full color.

“Get your head into the clouds with Aerial Geology.” —The New York Times Book Review Aerial Geology is an up-in-the-sky exploration of North America’s 100 most spectacular geological formations. Crisscrossing the continent from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, Mary Caperton Morton brings you on a fantastic tour, sharing aerial and satellite photography, explanations on how each site was formed, and details on what makes each landform noteworthy. Maps and diagrams help illustrate the geological processes and help clarify scientific concepts. Fact-filled, curious, and way more fun than the geology you remember from grade school, Aerial Geology is a must-have for the insatiably curious, armchair geologists, million-mile travelers, and anyone who has stared out the window of a plane and wondered what was below.