Explore Lower Owyhee Canyon, Oregon

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A majestic and overlooked area on the primary road to Lake Owyhee State Park, the Lower Owyhee Canyon area includes the Owyhee River Below the Dam Area of Critical Environmental Concern -- 11,239 acres of public land in and around the Owyhee River canyon just north of the Owyhee Dam. This area features the controlled-flowing Owyhee River with its narrow canyon bottom and picturesque canyon slopes and walls. Paralleling the river, a two-lane asphalt county road bisects the ACEC and leads visitors to popular Lake Owyhee State Park and the 53-mile-long Owyhee Reservoir. Recreational opportunities abound here, and include high-quality scenery, driving and walking or hiking for pleasure, varied wildlife and historic resource viewing, photography, camping, hunting, fishing, and water play at the developed day-use Snively Hot Springs Recreation Site. The Lower Owyhee Canyon Watchable Wildlife Area provides convenient tables for picnicking and a vault toilet, in addition to opportunities to view animals that frequent the area. ACECs are parcels of public land that require special management attention to protect special features or values. Home to diverse canyon landscape elements, this ACEC hosts a special status plant species (Mulford’s milkvetch) and a rare black cottonwood (Populus balsamifera ssp. trichocarpa) gallery in a riverine system. Diverse habitat types here also support a large number of wildlife species and an important migratory corridor for neotropical birds from Mexico, Central America and South America. Controlled releases from Owyhee Dam have variable effects on the riparian ecosystem along the river corridor. Based on evaluations of the river corridor, segments of the river within the ACEC, with adjacent BLM-administered land, have been determined eligible and suitable for possible inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic River System.

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