It really is. Out in the middle of nowhere.
It's about a 3hour trip from where we lived in Maryland, I think. The last leg of driving was always kind of hairy though. Going up and down mountains while riding the brakes in 3rd gear always put me on edge. But then when you get to the point its gravel roads, it was always just barely large enough for 2 vehicles and you had buses (canoe outfitters and such) driving those roads too, lots of blind corners with no guard rails as well.
We would camp at landing 16 which was the last landing for a long long ways down the river. We even went tubing starting from a point at this old bridge that crosses the river just before the paved road ended. That was kind of cool, slow deep spots, but lots of shallows with mini waterfalls and stuff to ride down. We went down past 16 one time too, but that scared the shit out of me because there is one point you have to go over where there are hydraulics and we knew people had died their before (yeah great thing to tell kids going down a river...). I freaked out when I started heading down the center of that area, where the hydraulics were too. But I guess I lived to post about it.
There is nothing like waking up in the middle of the night, and it is pitch black. If you think walking in your house in the "dark" is hard. Step outside a tent at midnight and try to find your way without a light... my god
It was all good fun though. And there were lots of beautiful views to see. We have pictures I can probably go drag out some time, of some really nice views. I wish they had digital cameras back then, and that I had one. I would have been more into photography I think.
There was one point along the road where you could hike from, and was spacey for parking. It was also right at a cliff/hill that you could walk up to and look from. It was amazing and we almost always stopped just to look or take pictures.
It's a vacation from them, too.
