Hells Canyon is worth seeing, whatever time of year you manage to get down there.

I’ve heard several connoisseurs of the canyon argue that an early spring look at those imposing walls is an entirely different experience and not to be missed.

The canyon is all greened up, for one thing. Even the smaller creeks are in business and waterfalls are running full force. Wildflowers run streaks of color up to the rims, and you might catch sight of more wildlife than later in the year, before they move to higher ground as summer heats things up down low. Also, if you’re looking to save on sunscreen, the temperatures not being cranked up as high will be working in your favor.

I got my first look at Hells in the spring last year, and the temperature was definitely lower than the summer float trips I’d been on. Usually it doesn’t take much to work up a sweat, but this time it was snowing on us before we even left the boat ramp below Hells Canyon Dam. But it was a light snow. I will say that. And it soon let up. The few flakes were worth it to look up later from camp and see the top of the canyon white, where I’m used to seeing sunbaked rock.

Coffee tastes better on a brisk morning, anyhow, and it was refreshing to not be chasing shade like it was worth ten dollars a square foot, which can be the summer routine. Instead, we’d float into a sunbreak and start peeling off the fleece jackets to soak up the blue sky and sunlight.

It doesn’t get terribly cold, but I do recall waking up to find a light frost on the ground. And technically that’s freezing. So if you want to see the deepest canyon in North America when Hells is freezing over, spring’s your time.

Got out in the boat last week. The mission was to check on areas along the Grand Ronde River that recently had grass seed applied by helicopter. Sarah Ketchum was doing the inspecting. She’s the Weed Programs Specialist for Wallowa Resources, a local nonprofit out here that does lots of good work by helping to manage natural resources with the community in mind. That’s my read on it, anyway. For the authentic mission statement, check them out at wallowaresources.org.

Sarah and I got on the water at Boggan’s Oasis and hopscotched along the right bank to stop at the benches where the seeding had gone down. She would hike up and do her mysterious science activities while I stayed by the boat and skipped rocks or built sand castles.

Found a few old tumble-down shacks that I’m guessing were used by cowboys back in the days. Speaking of cows, I’m almost reluctant to post the picture of what is perhaps the basest insult my eyes have ever beheld. But I think the world should know what these creatures are capable of.

The picture is about as self-explanatory as they come. It’s pretty hard not to get the message. What isn’t clear is what one cow could possibly do to another cow to bring on such treatment. Stealing cuds? Cutting in line on the way to the watering hole? Where in the life of a beef cow is there intrigue enough for one bovine to think, “There will come a day when I shall poop on your skull . . .”

For the record, there wasn’t another cowpie around for a good thirty yards. It wasn’t like there was a stampede and cow poo was everywhere. This did not look accidental. I was going to eat my roast beef sandwich on that beach but decided against it. The last thing I need is for a vindictive cow to take a dislike to me and follow me home, waiting for the chance to strike again.

That other picture is just a rock in the middle of some moss, but I thought it was a little bit groovy. That may have something to do with spring just beginning and the color green being a rarity.

Sarah got me going on starting my life list of birds. My first entry was a bald eagle eating a fish in the branch of a ponderosa. Saw bunches of deer and turkeys . . . it was a nice spring day. The kind that starts with a snowstorm on your way to the river. Then blue sky and you’re wearing just a t-shirt. Then raindrops and you break the parka out. Warms up, cools off, wind picks up, sun comes out. It’s like a game of Simon Says, with all the peeling off and adding back on of sweatshirts and fleece and jackets and raincoats. But it was good to be out there. Nice to be afloat again. And I learned that there is at least one cow in the world I definitely do not want to cross.

It doesn’t make a ton of sense to me to shave on the river. We’re happy to heat up water if you like, but I think five days of stubble just adds to the camping experience. But that’s about as long as I’ll go. Anything over a week and things get itchy. Also, my one attempt to grow a proper beard years ago ended very badly.

There is a community beard growing contest underway in Wallowa County as part of the festivities to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Oregon being a state. Also, the city of Enterprise was incorporated 120 years ago and the local courthouse was built 100 years ago. The town planners hit on the notion of a beard contest to commemorate these anniversaries.

Great. But count me out. I’ve been under a lot of pressure from friends who are in the whisker-a-thon, but they’ll have to go on without me. I have my reasons.

Back in my college days I went down to Costa Rica to study for a term and lived with a family while I was going to school. And I thought, hey, why not give the razor a rest. No particular reason, just seemed a good time to sprout whiskers.

A month later things were looking patchy. I seem to have a medical condition where the beard follicles down the middle of my chin have migrated over to either side. That leaves a bare stripe down the center, while the corners of my chin compensate and grow these bushy . . . tufts, I guess you would call them.

The mother of the family I was staying with understood english well enough, but didn’t like to speak it. And I could comprende what she was saying in spanish, but made a terrible mess when I tried to put a sentence together in español. So we had nice conversations each morning in our two languages. She would say, “Quieres huevos?” I would answer, “That would be great. Thank you.” Then she would say, “De nada.”

She had been following the progress of my facial hair with some interest, assuring me that I looked muy guapo. But there came a morning when she seemed concerned as we ate our huevos and bacon beneath the framed picture of Jesus above the kitchen table.

She pointed at my struggling beard with the two pointy patches on either side and informed me that I had una barba de diablo. A beard of the devil. Then she crossed herself quickly and glanced up at the portrait of Jesus.

Well, friends, that was the end of my beard growing days. I put down my fork, wiped my chin with my napkin in case there were any stray fragments of egg or brimstone on there, then marched upstairs to rid myself of that pointy monstrosity.

So I won’t be joining any beard growing contest. I can handle the itching and scratching of growing a beard. It’s the being driven out of a community under a hail of rocks that I’d rather avoid.

For the record, I consider myself a pretty nice guy and am quite sure the prince of darkness does not manifest himself in my patchy chin hair. It’s an unfortunate resemblance, is all. Which is a shame. Because shaving is one of my least favorite activities.

Would it be asking too much for the razor industry to standardize their replacement cartridges? There are razors called Mach 3, Turbo, Quattro Power, Tracer, Fusion, Xtreme . . . it sounds like a catalog of military ordinance rather than grooming products. I can never remember if I need to buy the Schick or Gillette and if it’s Turbo or Quad Cam and if it was three blades or four . . . do I get the surface-to-air heat seeking five blade cartridge with the soothing aloe strip? Or is it the fully automatic titanium self-cooling strafing howitzer model that pivots to reach those difficult spots?

They all look the same, so you guess. Next morning you find that you guessed wrong and there you are trying to shave by holding onto the sides of the little cartridge with your fingertips because none of the two dozen razor handles you own will fit the new blades.

I gave up on fancy razors long ago. Pitched the lot and went back to the cheap yellow single-blade models. The downside is that you get what you pay for. After shaving with economy razors, I come out of the bathroom looking like I’ve just been attacked by a lynx.

So I don’t even try on the river. Shaving once every five days is plenty. I don’t think I could handle the loss of blood if I tried any more than that.

We just got more daylight by changing the clocks. Which is good. But not really. The daylight was there, but our clocks weren’t. Every year when we go through this nonsense, and then back again, it looks to me like millions of otherwise intelligent people are agreeing to pretend we didn’t all just move our millions of little hands on our clocks and then say, “There. It’s five-o’-clock . . . again.”

I’ve never liked this daylight savings business. That’s not to say I don’t love daylight. Long summer days on the river are the best part of the year in my book.

But, really? Moving time back and forth? I’ve seen time travel movies. I know what happens when you go back in time or jump to the future. Every time we do this daylight savings ritual, I’m terrified we’re going to upset the earth-time continuum and throw the course of history off track.

We’re told this time jockeying benefits agricultural folks. I asked my rancher buddy if it made any difference to him what the clock said in regard to when he left the house or came in at night. He scowled, exhaled loudly, spat and walked off without answering. I’m going to take that as a “no.” Then again, that’s his response to many of my questions, so it’s hard to say.

It pains me to hear the rumor that Ben Franklin is responsible for thinking up daylight savings. I’m otherwise a fan of Ben’s work. He invented the kite, the lightning bolt, and perhaps his greatest gift to humanity -- the skullet, which is that fashionable hairstyle of going bald up top but still rocking the mullet in back.

There’s a Benjamin Franklin quote framed above the bar at our local brew pub, Terminal Gravity, which says, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” I wonder if Franklin didn’t come up with that saying right before the idea for daylight savings time. That would explain a lot.

I was talking to my little sister Jessica the other day about my dislike of daylight savings. She agreed and said, “there should also be thirteen months.” I didn’t follow her on this, but she explained: Fifty-two weeks in a year. Thirteen goes into fifty-two a nice, even, four times. If we had thirteen months there wouldn’t be any of this twenty-nine days in this month, thirty-one in another. No more counting on your knuckles to see which month has how many days. I guess leap year might give us some trouble, but we could move our clocks ahead one day and then change them back to avoid any difficulty.

I’ve named the new month “Jessember,” in honor of my little sis. I may need to put a sundial and a replica of Stonehenge in my yard and start doing my scheduling that way. Otherwise all the stress of adjusting times and calendars is going to send me into baldness and one of those Ben Franklin mullets.

Better yet, I’ll just go rafting. River Time is my kind of time. You get there when you get there and instead of minutes or hours, it’s stretches of river and number of days.

The world might have been a lot different if Ben Franklin had got in some leisurely rafting trips. Put some sunscreen on his skullet, kicked back on the banks of the Salmon River in a lawnchair and said to himself, “You know, I think this country should adopt a time change to river time. It won’t help the agricultural folks any, but they don’t pay attention to what the clock says anyway . . . let’s make another batch of riveritas.”

I got my big break in show business this past fall after the TV show Man vs. Wild filmed an episode in Hells Canyon. My exciting role in the production was to drive one of their rental trucks back to Wallowa County after the film crew flew home.

True, shuttling a vehicle isn’t exactly a starring role, but I did get to clean the garbage out of the rig and that provided some revealing behind-the-scenes tidbits.

For instance, nacho cheese Doritos seem to be an essential food source for filming survival situations. Also convenience store beef jerky. There were many bags of both items left behind.

They also left a copy of their filming schedule on the dashboard, and it makes for interesting reading. If you’re not familiar with the show, here’s a summary from the Discovery Channel website: “In each episode of Man vs. Wild Bear strands himself in popular wilderness destinations where tourists often find themselves lost or in danger. As he finds his way back to civilization, he demonstrates local survival techniques….”

“Bear” Grylls is the nickname of the host. Short for Edward Michael Grylls. I don’t watch much TV, so the filming schedule made much more sense once I learned that Bear was a person. Before that I was puzzled how they knew that on Day 2, they were going to film “Bear on the benches” between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. I didn’t know wildlife worked on a schedule.

At 10:30, “Bear comes to the edge of steep drop – woooooah this is hairy.” Then “Bear descends into valley, rocks are all loose.” Followed by an “actuality of Bear leaping around” for sequence 2.3.

While I don’t actually know what an actuality is, I don’t believe I’d ever seen the word “woooooah” before either. But these are show business terms, so I won’t question them.

I was looking forward to seeing the show, as I’ve been working in Hells Canyon for the past couple summers doing rafting trips for Winding Waters River Expeditions. We run a tight ship and have a spotless safety record, but it can’t hurt to be prepared if there ever comes a time when I have to rely on survival tactics to get myself out of the deepest canyon in the lower 48. I did find myself in dire straits on one trip last year, when we ran out of beer and I was forced to drink nothing but water and Gatorade for a full day and a half. It was touch and go.

Also, we have a satellite phone just in case something comes up, but that wouldn’t make for exciting television, showing footage of placing a call.

I thought I was getting to know Hells Canyon fairly well, having spent my summers down there and studying up on the geography. But in the Man vs. Wild show he encounters a frozen lake that he says is in Hells Canyon, and I have to confess that was news to me. I do know of a small pond near Lamont Springs that’s near an eagle’s nest and an old cabin, but no lake surrounded by conifers like Bear discovers. But that’s OK with me. He crawls out on the ice and falls through, so I’d just as soon stay clear of that mystery lake that doesn’t appear on the maps.

I did glean some useful pointers from the show. For instance, I never would have had the good sense to polevault down a steep slope with loose rocks. It’s right here on the filming schedule, at 8:30 a.m. – “Dead Pine/Larch – This could be the answer, makes polevault.”

I wasn’t trained by the British Special Air Service as Bear was, so in my ignorance I would have thought that swinging through the air and landing on loose scree would be a good way to break an ankle. But now I know better and if ever I need to make my way out of a steep remote area, polevaulting will be my preferred mode of travel. Good to know.

I’m preparing myself for another rafting season in Hells Canyon by laying in emergency rations of Doritos and store-bought jerky. I’m also on the lookout for a good dead pine or larch to make a survival polevault from and plan to use the word “woooooah” in conversation as much as possible.

These are the kinds of things you learn when you’re a shuttle driver to the stars.