OUR MISSION is to connect, protect, and restore the wild lands, waters, native species and habitats of the Greater Hells Canyon Region, ensuring a legacy of healthy ecosystems for future generations.

OUR VISION is a region of wild lands and waters where both native species and human communities thrive.

Greater Hells Canyon Council was founded in 1967 (as Hells Canyon Preservation Council). It was the era of Big Dams; Idaho Power was planning to construct the High Mountain Sheep Dam, whose creation would have drowned the wild and magnificent Hells Canyon forever.

When a group of hiking buddies from Idaho Falls learned of the plans to dam Hells Canyon, they formed HCPC to save their beloved retreat. These hiking buddies happened to be nuclear physicists, and they arranged meetings with Idaho Power officials, coming armed with slide rules and detailed questions about the proposed dam—detailed enough that Idaho Power decided to call in their lawyers.

Read the thrilling tale of saving Hells Canyon from start to finish. All proceeds from the sale of this book go directly back into protecting this wild region!

HCPC then joined forces with a young lawyer from the Sierra Club, Brock Evans, who filed an injunction with the courts to temporarily hold the dam's construction at bay. To everyone’s surprise, the injunction worked! HCPC and its allies now had some breathing room to carefully consider what they wanted. Stopping the dam was not enough—they had a larger vision for a protected Hells Canyon, wild and free for animals, plants, and recreation.

After years of campaigning in Washington, DC and in Hells Canyon country, HCPC and its allies prevailed. On December 31, 1975, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area Act.

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Greater Hells Canyon Council

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