Evening view.
Secret parking spot slightly off the road.
Could have been fun, but...hot, no shade, dusty, buggy.
Jerry-rigged sunshade in rear of car relects at least some son while the hills wait for night.
Local color.
So, Dry Falls and Lenore Lake didn't work too well. Given that, I decided to head south and take a second look at Lower Crab Creek, since it wasn't too far off. Maybe, I thought, evening would be better than the morning had been. Maybe the weather would cool. Maybe magic.
After also checking out Billy Clapp Lake, I headed south through Soap Lake (a town), and Ephrata, and aimed in the general direction of Royal City, but a bit east. The roads were good. Billy Clapp Lake was not, especially. Nowhere to camp without paying a bunch, hot, hostile, and so on, although given the right weather, there is what has been called a decent hike along it west side.
Shortly south of Royal City is the Lower Crab Creek Road, which doesn't seem to have a number. I cruised west on that until I spotted a gap in the Russian olive trees and pulled off the main road (dusty gravel). This was immediately west of what shows up on the map as "Smyrna", where the road takes a jag south before it turns straight west again.
Parking was OK. There was a reasonable level of stealth. I thought it could work.
Sitting in the car's shade the 93°F temperature was not too bad. Surely things would cool after sunset. Nope.
By 7:30 p.m. the sun was low, but then the light breeze died and the bugs came out. Mosquitoes. Hungry. Whining. And the air became heavily humid. Nope. Nope.
Time to scrape the maps with my tired eyeballs. Time to swap back into refugee mode.
Here? There? Where?
OK, Jackson Creek Fish Camp. Back to Jackson Creek Fish Camp. It hadn't been bad. It had been good. Chance it.
I bugged out. Unbugged myself. Left bugginess behind. Drove fast, making my own wind. All the bugs finally fell away.
I got to Jackson Creek by 8:20, with the sun slipping behind the cross-river bluffs a few minutes later. No one there, not even fishers. Wow — I had the whole exact entire place to myself. There was a slight breeze. The air was not humid. The lack of shade did not count because the site was cooler in the evening dimness. Fine. I could even urinate into the fire pit at will, one of my favorite conveniences.
I had a decent sleep.
Before I left in the morning two pickup trucks came in, separately, and each left after a few minutes. Other than that I was totally alone. Deal. I didn't complain. The morning sky was blue. Hope returned.
More info:
Crab Creek (Wikipedia)
Lower Crab Creek Unit, Columbia Basin Wildlife Area Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife
Crab Creek (Columbia National Wildlife Refuge) Washington Trails Association
Elaeagnus angustifolia "Russian Olive" (Wikipedia)