Owyhee Canyonlands

The Owyhee Canyonlands is one of the most remote and wildest places in the contiguous United States. It has shaped the southeastern corner of Oregon into a surreal landscape of canyons, caldera rims, twisted rock-spired valleys and undulating hills that stretch for miles. Volcanic activity has dotted the area with hot springs, lava beds, craters and cinder cones. 

This scenically stunning stone labyrinth of chasms and furrowed badlands was created over eons by the erosive actions of the Owyhee River. Many stretches of the river feature narrow slot canyons with thousand-foot sheer stone walls, and the entire drainage is characterized by a maze of side-canyons and gulches. It travels across remote public lands within Oregon, Idaho and Nevada. In Oregon, the waters flow northward and empty into the Snake River south of Ontario.

 Within the canyonlands, the Owyhee River Canyon Wilderness Study Area includes 190,700 acres in Oregon with narrowing and meandering canyons 500 to 1,000 feet deep. More than 200 species of wildlife find homes within the canyons and the sagebrush rims of both the Owyhee River and its tributaries. Humans have occupied the Owyhee Canyonlands at least since the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age and traces remain of the first people to live there more than 11,000 years ago.