Monday, June 18, 2018

Palouse Falls

The not-dry falls of Washington State's channeled scablands. These are the other falls. Palouse Falls.

Energetic. Forceful. Downfalling.

There is a slight trail curling around the basin. No idea what made it, but it's not for hiking.

Downstream. Overlook under a big tree (right), parking lot, and "campground" (way right, hardly visible).

The downstream part looks inviting, and I hear that it can be navigated via kayak.

It is possible to scoot around to the north side of the falls to get a different perspective, bit it's also possible to slip off the edge.

Mostly it's safer to stay behind the fence.

Massive though. Massive falls way out here nowhere.

Yeah, so one more try. Still hot though. Still dusty.

From Jackson Creek Fish Camp I headed east again, and took in Palouse Falls. Impressive, but dry, hot, and dusty (more of the same).

There was a campground there, at the state park of the same name, but it was only a small patch of grass, two sides of which were defined by the gravel parking lot, subject to clouds of dust from it, and had no privacy.

Not much choice for me. I headed south, toward Walla Walla. I thought I could camp in the hills east of town and then head west again.

Along the way I stopped at Lewis and Clark Trail State Park and had a shower. Nice looking place but low and overgrown and would have been fatally buggy to stay in.

The roads out of Walla Walla have changed from four years ago. One, going through the mythical community of Kooskooskie, dead ends now, way short of where I wanted to go, as far as I can tell, and the other, north of there, is gated near the top. Anyway, I could at least find the gated part if not the place I once parked along the other road, so I stayed by the gate, above and east of Walla Walla.

And was attacked by bees.

There were hives, about 50 of them, across a fence just ahead of my car, 50 or 60 feet or so (15m - 20m). As soon as I opened my container of Safeway deviled egg potato salad I had a couple of bees flying at me, banging into me. I kept swatting at them. Not much good.

I folded a paper towel into a mitt and caught the more persistent one and crushed it. A bit later another one came along. Much more aggressive. This one slammed into my face several times. I had to pull it off and throw it downwind, but it kept coming back, so I crushed it too.

About then I finished eating and the bees thinned out. Must have been the smell of my food.

No other bugs. Breezy overnight with frequent gusts of gale-force stuff shaking the car. No rain, not cold. Pretty much OK.

The next day I again buzzed through Yakima far to the west, showered there and ate, and headed back to Rimrock Lake, and camped again at the end of the road where I had parked a few days earlier. All quiet. Probably overrun during the summer vacation season, but I was once again alone.

More info:

Palouse Falls (Wikipedia)

Lewis and Clark Trail State Park (Wikipedia)