Category: Eastern Washington

Fishtrap Lake, Hiking the south loop trail.

For todays winter hike, I headed southwest of Spokane to the BLM’s Fishtrap Lake Recreation Area. A hour drive brought me to the trailhead for this hike. I had hiked the north loop a couple of years ago and there is some overlap.

The trail starts out going through what looks like an endless expanse of semi-desert steppe. You can measure the sight line in miles, not feet. Beneath the thin grasses the ground is pretty much basalt rocks. Not much else can grow out here.

After a mile I was able to turn around and see my car in the distance. I imagine some folks give up on this hike after half an hour due to lack of scenery.

On the way to the lake I passed several small iced over ponds. When I hiked this site in the spring of 2022 there was a lot of swampy ground and it was hard to keep my feet dry.

After half an hour you start passing by walls of basalt.

The trail descends through an area of scattered pines and rock outcroppings as you get closer to the lake.

When I made it to the shore near the southwest end of the lake, I wasn’t all that surprised to find it covered in a thick layer of ice. A lot of the ice was black (clear) ice that forms when it’s calm and the lake freezes in a hurry. It is the safest ice to walk on.

Next I followed the western shore to the northeast. I thought this basalt monolith looked a lot like a pill box.

I came across this kolk crater. I had to look up what that is and found out these features are the holes left over from vortex’s caused by gigantic flood events. Apparently they are found throughout the Channeled Scablands.

After detouring around the crater I was back to following the shoreline on rocky bluffs about thirty feet above the ice. Fishtrap Lake is about two miles long but only about one to two hundred feet wide and less than thirty feet deep.

At a gully the trail descended down to lake level and I enjoyed the view to the far shore. I got a good look at the ice and it looked to be over four inches thick. The entire basin reverberated with the distinctive sound of the ice cracking under the immense pressure.

Where the trail deviated inland, it passed beneath another wall of basalt through pines and dense stands of aspen trees. It looked like a wildfire had burned through the area a few years ago. There were a lot of surviving pines which means it wasn’t as hot as some others in the area.

Here I stopped to enjoy the view as it was time to call it good. The lake goes another half mile before it ends at a small resort and is fed from a creek that connects to Hog Lake.

On the way back, I took this photo of a very pretty headland. You can see the shadows are starting to lengthen. This looks like a fun lake to kayak as well.

After finishing a four hour hike, I made a quick detour to the Folsom Farm interpretive site.

On my previous trip to the Fishtrap Lake Recreation Area, I hiked out to the waterfall on the northeast end of Hog Lake. There are lots of places to explore out here. FYI, if you want to see a waterfall don’t wait for summer, the creek will be dry by then.

Fishtrap Lake is just off Interstate 90 about 30 miles west of Spokane. The 9000 acre site has miles of trails, two boat ramps on two lakes, a waterfall and several trailheads. I’ve read mixed reviews on the hiking here, but I highly recommend it, especially for winter and cool early season hiking.

Coffee Pot Lake and Twin Lakes in the Channeled Scablands.

For todays winter hike(s), I visited the Lake Creek Coulee north of Odessa and southwest of Davenport, in other words in the middle of nowhere. The Bureau of Land Management (the real BLM) is responsible for thousands of acres of semi-desert steppe in the area around the coulee including a couple of recreation areas on striking scabland lakes.

To get to this hidden gem I had to drive over two hours west through farmland that looks a lot like Kansas. The areas of central Washington that were not scoured to bedrock by the ice age floods are some of the most productive agricultural lands in the country. Out here you can drive for hours without hardly ever seeing a car or another human.

My first stop was Coffee Pot Lake, a large scabland lake with a small campground and boat ramp just off of the paved road.

From the parking lot I was able to take a short walk over a small headland for a view of the main body of the lake. There were thousands of wild geese all along the shore and in the middle of the open water. I was surprised that most of the lake was ice free. It turned out the lake is deep, eighty feet in some spots and wider than most scabland lakes.

After checking out the day use area, I drove back up the entrance road to a small parking area that accessed the trail above the bluffs on the north side of the lake.

The unmarked trail started out as a double track that looked like it was used for cattle operations. It stayed away from the shear cliffs that bordered the lake at first. Mostly it meandered through sage brush and the tall grass.

A small basalt ridge covered in green lichen paralleled the trail to the north screening the trail from the paved road north of the site.

About half a mile in a short spur brought me to the edge of the cliffs above the lake. It was about two hundred feet straight down from this point. The surface of the lake was covered by thousands of geese all making a thunderous racket with their incessant honking.

To the west down the coulee another lake was separated from Coffee Pot by a low isthmus of dry land. The lower lake is actually seasonally part of Coffee Pot and much sallower.

I continued west off trail along the cliffs using cattle paths and finding openings in the sage brush.

A mile in I came to my turn around point above the isthmus from here I could see the lower lake was indeed frozen as was the far west end of the main lake. I got to watch a coyote hunting below me. He was too far away to get a decent photo of.

On the way back I came across this skull of some unfortunate animal. It is the circle of life.

On the way back I took the spur to the cliff again to soak in the views. Some of these basalt cliffs are beyond vertical. Coffee Pot Lake is listed at over 800 acres making it one of the bigger lakes in the scablands.

Looking back to the west the scene looked like it could have been from the high Artic summer with the dramatic cliffs, patches of ice, little vegetation and thousands of screaming birds.

So after walking maybe three miles along the cliffs, I returned to the parking area and drove a few miles to another BLM recreational site, this time on Twin Lakes.

A long gravel road eventually descended back in to Lake Creek Coulee to a site with a small camp ground, fishing dock and day use parking between two smaller but beautiful lakes.

Time was getting short so I parked and checked out both lakes. Both of them were frozen solid.

A small creek connected the lakes right at the day use area. It was the only open water around.

I checked out the lower lake first. According to topo maps it is very shallow maxing out at about ten feet deep. It was still very pretty. I tossed a couple of small rocks out on the smooth black ice to see how far they would slide.

Some day soon I would like to come back with my kayaks. Both of these lakes looked well worth exploring.

By now I only had a hour or so in my time budget to explore so I crossed a makeshift foot bridge over the connecting creek and followed a trail on the south side of the upper lake. Across the way was a small waterfall that created its own small area of open water. I could hear the sound of the falling water as it hit the lake.

The trail looked like it could have been a little better maintained as it skirted a small ice covered pond. Fortunately it is easy to go off trail in the scablands as long as it’s cold enough to keep the rattlers in their dens.

According to my research the upper lake is quite a bit deeper with a hole around sixty feet deep. At the northeast end of the lake they’re a couple of mature ponderosa pines to break up the grasslands.

Before I called it a day I stopped for one last photo of the upper lake. This is when I saw the first other people in my entire trip. I man and his son set up camp and then set up an ice fishing tent on the ice. They say black ice is the safest to walk on but still sixty feet is a long way down.

I spent more time driving to and from the lakes than i did hiking today. It was still well worth the effort. I had no idea these lakes existed until I researched locations for winter hikes in the Inland Northwest. When I make it back a camping trip and kayaking will be on the agenda. If you want to go shoot for early spring when its still cool and the snakes aren’t active.

The Columbia Plateau Trail, Amber Lake and an impressive embankment.

For todays hike, I headed an hour or so through and past Spokane to check out the Columbia Plateau Trail, specifically the section from the Amber Lake trailhead towards the north.

Last year I took a short hike on the Columbia Plateau Trail from the end of the pavement outside of Cheney Washington into the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge. At the time I felt like I didn’t have enough photos or information on this trail to make a post. The unpaved part of the trail started at a trailhead off of Cheney Spangle Road.

The first mile of the trail passes through farm and ranch land before crossing under Cheney Plaza Road and entering the wildlife refuge.

Turnbull Wildlife Refuge is about 23,000 acres and covers a portion of the channeled scablands, a geological area in Eastern Washington created by ice age floods that stripped the soil away and left numerous narrow lakes in coulees. The section I hiked passed by several small lakes and through low cuts blasted through the basalt.

In the area excavated I notice this striking radial design around a small hole. Once you see one of these, you can’t un-see them. These were created by blasting the rocks so the basalt could be more easily removed. Once I saw it, I noticed dozens more through out the cuts.

This line, The Spokane Portland and Seattle was built in 1905 and operated for eighty plus years. The 130 miles between Spokane and Pasco are now owned by the State of Washington and maintained as a public trail.

That was last summer. Today I was looking for a place for a winter hike with limited or no snow and open scenery so I could stay in the sunshine, so I decided to check out another section of this trail.

It took me over a hour to drive to the Amber Lake Trailhead. All of the trailheads require the Discover Pass to use so I used mine. In addition to providing access to the trail there is also a place to launch kayaks or canoes on this pretty little lake.

Like most lakes in the Channeled Scablands, Amber Lake is long and narrow and oriented from the northeast to the southwest in the direction the ancient flood waters presumably flowed. Being late January the lake as to be expected was iced over.

Near the northeast end of the lake, the old railroad bed ran through a cut right next to it.

Soil and rock from the cut was used to create an embankment along part of the lake shore.

Beyond Amber Lake the rail bed curved towards another of these cuts through the basalt. Scattered Ponderosa Pines were the dominate tree species along the trail.

That and birch trees. What looked like frost was actually the last of Decembers snow that had not yet melted in the shade of the rock walls.

Around a bend was a tunnel, kind of. This is a recent addition to avoid crossing one of the only paved roadways in the area, Mullinex Road.

Even in a newer and very remote tunnel, the lowlife vandals have been hard at work degrading the experience for everyone. Thanks scumbags! Even though it wasn’t an original railroad tunnel it was still kind of neat to walk through.

Past the tunnel the cuts through the basalt got a little bigger. You have to be impressed with the work it took to make this railroad a hundred and twenty years ago.

This rock wall shows how the cooling lava created basalt columns. A patch of ice at the bottom is a seepage of ground water.

Between the cuts through the basalt the trail passed by numerous small ponds all frozen.

Beyond the trials crossing with Stirling Road the old railbed ran on top of a small embankment between wetlands. This is were I called it good and turned around.

Once back at the parking lot I took a short walk to get a good look at the part of the lake southwest of the trailhead. I decided to make one more detour before I made the drive home.

Just seven miles or so southeast the Columbia Plateau Trail kind of ends at Williams Lake Road just inside Lincoln County. I’ve always found the correlation between trees and the Spokane County line kind of interesting. Spokane County gets drier the further east you head but has Ponderosa Pines right up to the county line. As soon as you cross into Lincoln or Adams counties there are almost no trees.

South of Lake Williams Road the trail reverts to a rough surface of old railroad ballast and isn’t really suitable for even fat tired bikes. In fact its kind of hard to walk on. Only real adventures explore the eighty mile long section from here to Franklin County. Also I understand that several road crossings and high trestle bridges are closed and their are no practical detours around them.

However just across the road from the trailhead there was this epic piece of early twentieth century engineering. This was the largest railroad embankment I’ve ever came across and I couldn’t resist checking it out.

It was well over a mile across a coulee I couldn’t find the name of on this massive earthen berm. It is difficult to impart the scale of this marvel. Quick math gave me a ball park guess that upwards of half a million cubic yards of rock and dirt were used to create it.

Halfway across I could see the barren terraces were I’m guessing all of this fill came from over a hundred and twenty years ago. I’m guessing this embankment was over seventy feet above the coulee floor and tapered from thirty feet wide at the top to well over a hundred feet wide at the bottom.

Looking up the coulee I could see Down Lake with Mica Peak Washington in the far distance almost forty miles away.

After forty five minutes I made it to the other side of the coulee. Now there was nothing left to do but return to the trailhead. The sun was getting pretty low on the horizon and the scablands are lonely country.

I took a last look at this giant causeway and called it a day. I would call both the section of the trail southeast of Amber Lake and the massive embankment hidden gems in the Inland Northwest. It is an epic landscape indeed.

Exploring old abandoned railroads is one of my favorite things to do. This rail trail eventually crosses over the Palouse Cascade Trail anther thirty miles or so to the southwest. I guess I have more places to check out next spring.

Saltese Uplands Conservation Area

For my first post since my return to the Inland Northwest I headed fifteen minutes down the road to Spokane County’s Saltese Uplands Conservation Area.

I chose this hike because partially due to our mild winter, the site is mostly snow free and is open to the sun. When the wind is still and the sun is out thirty degrees isn’t too bad. Down at the valley floor at two thousand feet we’ve had les snow so far this year than Pensacola or New Orleans. The mountains are another story and I would have to trudge through several feet on the mountains that border Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.

The hike starts at a trailhead on Henry Street between the towns of Liberty Lake and Spokane Valley. As always Spokane County offers free access for day users and maintains an excellent trail system on their properties. This is the first sign I’ve seen telling people not to leave their used dog poop bags on the trail. I see them all the time and am amazed at the mentality that thinks someone else should pick up after them.

They’re about seven miles of trails winding around the six hundred plus acres of native semi arid steep. Not all of the Inland Northwest is covered in farmland or evergreen forests. as I climbed a series of gentle switchbacks up Turtle Gulch, I had a view of the Saltese Flats Restoration Area, another Spokane County conservation site.

Only a few scattered Ponderosa Pines are found mostly in sheltered draws. The rest of the site is covered in grasslands with a few rock outcroppings.

The trail climbs to the sites highpoint next to a water storage tank. It is a leisurely walk. The total elevation gain around five hundred feet.

The Saltese Uplands are known for being a place to view bird life. I saw a couple of hawks, magpies and this little guy who let me take a photo.

Across the wetlands of Saltese Flats are the Dishman Hills with its excellent hiking including the Rocks of Sharon.

After climbing out of the gulch you are treated to nice views of the surrounding mountains. This is the view of Mica Peak Idaho, AKA “Signal Point” and Shasta Butte, “AKA Big Rock” along with smaller Cable Peak on the right side of the photo.

At the top there is a nice view of Liberty Lake with the mountains behind it. I could see ice forming on the lake. The marshland on the far right side of the picture is in Liberty Lake Park, another excellent hiking site owned and managed by Spokane County.

At the top there was a couple of inches of old snow from a few weeks ago. Due to the cold dry air and the effects of evaporation what was left looked like tiny shards of white glass.

Looking towards Idaho and Post Falls from the high point I enjoyed the view of Mt. Rathdrum center left and Chilco Mountain on the far right horizon. It was kind of neat seeing so many of my favorite hiking places. Now I can’t wait for the snow to melt.

I had to walk around the water storage tank on the top to get a view of Mount Spokane across the valley. They are definitely skiing up there.

After the high point, it was an easy three mile walk back to the trailhead. On the way I checked out Mica Peak Washington with its distinctive FAA radar dome. So you might ask why are they’re two Mica Peaks within six miles of each other. Well its because at some point the one in Idaho was renamed on topo maps. Most everyone who grew up here still calls it Signal Point. There is a town of Mica on the west side of Mica Peak Washington too.

Near the end I crossed the gully’s again and walked through this little tree tunnel where a seasonal creek runs in the early spring.

It’s not the most exciting hike in the area but it is different and more importantly a good place to stretch your legs in the winter. I ended up covering about five and a half miles which provided a much needed excuse to get outside this time of the year.

Hopefully I’ll get in a couple of more winter hikes while we are enjoying the break in the weather. I’m looking for low elevation sites that are mostly snow free and they’ll all be west of Spokane in the scablands.

Liberty Lake Loop Trail

I wrapped up the weekend by returning to Liberty Lake Regional Park for the first time this year. The park has been undergoing an extensive renovation and has been closed for the season.

When I arrived I discovered that the park was still closed. However signage at the entrance directed hikers to an alternative connection to the extensive trail system at the parks equestrian trailhead down the road about a mile. I should have checked this out sooner. The connecting trail was a gem I’ve never hiked before called the Zephyr Connector.

This trail meandered through an open pine forest for about a mile as it descended a couple of hundred feet to the main train along Liberty Creek. There were some open views of Liberty Lake and of Mica Peak on the way down.

South of the lake there are open meadows and wetlands on the floor of the valley.

At the bottom the scenery looked a lot like places I’ve hiked in central Florida. You just have to avoid seeing the mountains the other three directions.

As you head upstream the small valley closes in and you are soon walking through a thick forest. Being early October there wasn’t much water left.

This small ravine stays relatively moist throughout the year creating conditions that promote lots of moss and ferns. The track is in excellent shape and you slowly gain elevation as you follow the creek.

About two miles in from the equestrian trailhead you come to the cedar grove. There is a bench and interpretive signage here and the trail crosses the stream on a foot bridge. Immediately after the bridge, the trail climbs up the west slope of the ravine on a series of short steep switchbacks. This is were you gain most of the elevation on the hike.

At the end of the final switchback their is a nice open view back down to Liberty lake. The mountain across the Spokane Valley is Antione Peak, a place I hike and have posted about. Both the Antione Peak Conservation Area and Liberty Lake Regional Park are owned and managed by Spokane County.

After climbing out of the steep valley the trail travels along the west side and heads north and then northwest through a mature forest with large second growth trees.

At a couple of open areas high above the creek you can see across the ravine and have a view of Cable Peak on the Idaho side of the state line. The Idaho Department of Lands owns a block of land down slope that I enjoy hiking on.

As it is getting late in the season it was kind of chilly in the dense forest and even at midday the shadows are much longer than in summer. The trail ends up crossing one of the small creeks that flow together to create Liberty Creek on a small footbridge.

I almost had the place to myself. This trail is a loop trail, but I usually return the same way I came. If you take the full loop it is over a eight mile hike and the final descent to the creek is extremely steep.

After the steam crossing you continue up hill towards the waterfalls on a couple of questionable boardwalk sections. It look’s like these gems are due for a rebuild.

Then I finally make it to the roaring waterfall. What did you expect, after all it is October.

So here’s the same fall, the lower fall in spring. Much better. If you want to see waterfalls in this part of the country and really most any place in the United States, it’s best to go just after the snow melts off the trail.

Here’s the upper fall also in the spring time. This point is right at three miles in and a nice place to turn around.

On the way back I was treated to this sight. That is a bunch of lady bugs.

I also got to step over this little guy trying to soak up a little solar radiation on one of the last somewhat warm days of the year.

The entire hike worked out to be a little over six miles. The alternate trailhead added a little distance and elevation as I had to regain a couple of hundred feet right at the end of my journey. All together this made for about a twelve hundred foot elevation gain.

Liberty Lake Park is a great place to stretch my legs and its only fifteen minutes from my house. Give me Liberty or Give me Death.

I probably have made this hike over a dozen times since I moved to the Inland Northwest. There is a connector trail that traverses the north side of Mica Peak Washington and joins up with the trail system on the Mica Peak Conservation Area, yet another excellent Spokane County amenity.

The Little Spokane River

This was my second time kayaking the Little Spokane River from the St. George’s launch to the Nine Mile takeout. The kayak launch site and the take out are part of Riverside State Park so a Discover Pass is required.

The last six miles of the Little Spokane River is a very popular route for kayakers and paddle boarders. The adventure starts at the St. George’s Trailhead near the private academy of the same name off Waikiki Road near the northern edge of the urban area.

As this is a one way trip we had to stage a pickup vehicle at the takeout spot first. In the summer, the City of Spokane runs a shuttle service for a fee.

The crystal clear stream has a significant current and meanders around horseshoe bends pretty much the entire length of the trip. South of the river are small rocky bluffs.

Wildlife includes numerous aquatic birds.

Almost all of the shoreline is within the state park and even though we were in Spokane County, there’s almost no development along the river.

As far as I could tell we were the only people on the river on a clear warm Friday morning. The first time I paddled this river was on a weekend and we had lots of company. Things really quiet down after Labor Day in the Inland Northwest.

I had planned on making a post about this trip the first time I did it less than a month ago but long story short, it turned out I was going to need a new phone/camera after we made it about half way down and that’s all I have to say about that.

The entire trip took about three hours. We mostly let the current carry us downstream and just steered the kayaks around the bends.

About halfway down we passed under the bridge for the Rutter Parkway. Here is the only other place people can launch or takeout, however it involves carrying your kayak a couple of hundred yards through a swampy field.

Beyond the bridge and the landing at the Indian Rocks trailhead you can see the large rocky cliffs on the north side of the river.

The ducks show you the way.

The trip reminded me of canoeing on Florida spring runs. You don’t have to worry about alligators or snakes though.

The rocky bluffs north of the river are impressive. This is the small mountain the Knothead Trail goes up and over from the Indian Rocks Trailhead. I posted about this hike earlier this spring.

Here is the view of the Little Spokane River from that hike. It gives you some idea how serpentine the river is.

As we neared the end of the trip, the valley opens up. Beyond the takeout point the Little Spokane ends at it’s junction with the Spokane River. The Spokane River is impounded here by Long Lake dam creating the lake of the same name. Just upstream is the much smaller Nine Mile Dam, a point of interest on the Riverside State Park section of the Centennial Trail.

It was a nice day on the Little Spokane River. Hopefully I will visit it more often. It’s hard to believe this year was the first time I took this trip since I moved to the area eighteen years ago.

This is definitely one of the best kayak spots in the Inland Northwest. It can be busy on summer weekends but during weekdays and on the shoulder season it is wonderful. Next time I hope to see a moose or two.

The Palouse Cascade Trail part 3, biking west from Rosalia.

For my third trip this summer on the Palouse Cascade Trail, I headed west from Rosalia with the goal of making it to Malden. I fell short by a couple of miles. Better to enjoy a sixteen mile round trip than have a miserable twenty miler. Part 1 is under the hiking category as that is how I traveled it.

Rosalia is a small farming town on US-195 about thirty-five miles south of Spokane. The Palouse Cascade Trail crosses the old highway just south of Rosalia on this amazing concrete arch bridge. This bridge is a local landmark and still has the Milwaukee Railroad logo painted on it.

In addition to the old highway, this bridge crossed Pine Creek , a small stream the trail follows all the way to Rock Lake. The new US-195 crosses over the railroad easement just to the east. Rosalia is about twenty miles west of Tekoa, the town I used as my base for my last trip on the trail. The level of engineering used on the bridges give a hint that this was once one of the five transcontinental railroads in the United States.

The trail is a little hard to access from the town. Rosalia does have a small park with restrooms, but the trail is located up a steep slope from the town off of rough gravel roads. Within the first mile, a steep detour bypasses a place where an old bridge was removed over Gashouse Road. This intersection is the only thing resembling a trailhead in the area.

At the intersection their is an interpretive sign. The trail surface alternates between rough gravel ballast and soft sand. I heard the surface is far more challenging west of Rock Lake and Ewan.

The first couple of miles out of Rosalia parallels US-195 and passes though a typical mix of farmland and basalt cuts as it heads north and then northwest.

The trail passes a cemetery just outside of town. There’s one off the trail just east of Tekoa as well.

At Babb Road, the trail passes under the roadway in a newer culvert. I don’t think a train would fit through it. I’m not sure if this “tunnel” replaced a taller bridge or if the road just didn’t go through before the railroad was abandoned.

Evidence of a catastrophic wildfire from a few years ago was evident along the trail. This fire burned down much of the town of Malden and three or four bridges between that town and Pine City. Here I ran into the only other person I saw. This gentleman was nearing the end of a multiday journey that started in Cedar Falls over two hundred miles away. I was impresses. I made it sixteen and was tired by the time I finished.

Here is the first of several bridges over Pine Creek west of Rosalia. It was an impressive piece of engineering.

After the bridge, the trail passed through a couple of impressive cuts trough the basalt.

There are still old telegraph posts along the trail, some of which still had the old glass insulators. This was close to my turnaround point. I was still short of Malden by a couple of miles and the next bridge over Pine Creek was just around the bend. Sometimes a man has to know his limitations.

I saw a couple of coyotes and these white tail deer. Other than that my wildlife was limited to birds.

Most of the route of this trail is bordered by either farmland or cattle ranches. There were a few pieces of abandoned machinery along the way.

The trail passes through open range areas with gates that are the responsibility of the trail user to open and close. The State of Washington requires trail users to register on line so that they understand the rules. This process is simple and can be found here. The bovines did yield the right-of-way to me without argument.

On the way back to Rosalia I took a brief detour off trail to get a different preceptive of the bridge over Pine Creek.

When I got back to Rosalia, I ran into the same fella that I talked to on my way outbound. He was camping at the local park and we shared a couple of beers and traded stories about riding bicycle trails. Not a bad way to finish the trip.

An hour later I was back home after navigating rush hour traffic through Spokane. Between this ride and my two previous trips on the Palouse Cascade Trail I think I’ve seen most of it though eastern Washington. I would really like to explore the section through the Cascade Mountains closer to Seattle. I understand that part is beautiful and more user friendly. That might have to wait until next year.

McKenzie Conservation Area

Yesterdays hike at the McKenzie Conservation Area on the north side of Newman Lake is a return to a local hidden gem. Thank you Spokane County. This was my fourth trip here this year. The trailhead is only about fifteen minutes from my house.

A simple gravel parking area provides access to about five miles of hiking trails. I hiked about four miles of them by taking the Bedrock Ridge Trail and returning on the Turtle Rock Trail with a side trip south through the marshlands to the property boundary and back. Oddly enough, Spokane County has another conservation area only a few miles to the south with slightly different spelling called Mackenzie next to Liberty Lake Park. If anyone who reads this blog knows why that is please let me know.

The first part of the Bedrock Ridge Trail winds through a nice mixed forest. One of the things I like about McKenzie is the tree variety. Pretty much every species native to the area is represented.

The two species of firs, Grand and Douglas often grow side by side. Douglas firs are not true fir trees and the needles grow out of the stem in a radial pattern. Grand firs have flat needles like a feather.

The Bedrock Ridge Trail gains a little bit of elevation and true to it’s name about a mile in you come to rock outcroppings near the high point of the trail.

Here you see Newman Lake for the first time on the hike. On the drive to the trailhead you get to see a lot of the lake from the the windshield. It is a scenic drive.

At the junction with the Turtle Rock Trail I went right instead of left to check out the wetlands on the south end of the conservation area.

Something had a sweet tooth. I saw more than one hive broken open and scattered. I imagine the first few licks of honey were awfully tangy.

I turned around and made my way to Turtle Rock. This is the only spot on the property where its possible to access the lake without wading through marshlands. Allegedly this was a favorite campsite for Native Americans.

Most of the walk back on the Turtle Rock Trail is flat and skirts wetlands.

There are some pretty big cottonwood trees in the lowlands along with cedars and hemlocks. The conservation area has several mature western white pines which is nice to see as they were almost eliminated from the region due to the white pine blister rust and over harvesting.

Another view of Newman Lake.

McKenzie Conservation Area is a nice place to enjoy a relaxing walk in the woods. The elevation gain is minimal and views are beautiful. That’s Mica Peak Idaho, AKA Signal Point, in the distance. There is another trail that crosses Newman Lake Road and climbs considerable higher up the ridge if you just have to get more of a workout. This loop adds another mile of two to the hike and gains maybe 400 feet of elevation. There are no views of the lake through from this trail.

The Palouse Cascades Trail part 2, Biking from Tekoa to Seabury and back.

Yesterday I tool a sixteen mile trip on a section of the Palouse Cascades Trail on my old trusty mountain bike.

I started my trip in the small town of Tekoa. It is one of the nicer towns in the Palouse and has several historic buildings including this old art deco movie theater. Across the street is a small park with a public restroom, a rare amenity out here in farm country.

The landmark Tekoa trestle dominates the local landscape. This 976 foot long and 125 foot high structure carried the transcontinental Milwaukee Road rail line over Hangman Creek, State Road 27 and another old railroad easement.

There is a trailhead off Washington Street on the east side of the trestle with interpretive signage and a picnic table. This trail is managed as a Washington State Park and extends from the Idaho state line almost to the Seattle area.

From the trestle there is a view of the town looking up Hangman Creek. In the background is Liberty Butte, one of several large hills embedded in the middle of an expanse of wheat fields.

The trail winds through miles of agricultural land alternating between cuts through the hills and embankments between them.

About three miles in you come to Lone Pine. There are the remains of an old grain loading facility here and not much else.

Wheat is the main crop here and in places they cultivate it right to the edge of the trail bed. About eighty percent of the fields I rode by were already harvested but some were still waiting for the combines.

Tekoa is in Whitman County which bills itself as the largest wheat producing county in the United States.

Amber waves as far as the eye can see. From the trail you get to see scattered farm buildings and spacious skies.

I crossed under one old bridge. The trail surface varied from rough ballast to fresh gravel and some areas of dried compacted dirt. I don’t usually ride on gravel and going sixteen miles on it was like riding forty on pavement.

I came across two places where small bridges had been removed and the state build a bypass trail.

Just before my turn around place, I arrived at the historic Seabury Bridge. I walked the bike across as some of the gaps in the decking could easily catch a bicycle tire and eight miles is a long way to walk back. There is a lot of useful information about the trail on the home page for the Palouse Cascade Trail Coalition, a non-profit group dedicated to supporting improvements to the trail.

The Seabury Bridge crossed over another railroad which is now also abandoned. Here you can see the cut of the Spokane Inland Empire branch that at one time extended all the way to Lewiston.

Here is the best view I could get of this impressive structure. It’s long way down to the bottom and the land down there is privately owned.

So here was the end of my ride. Washington State Parks put up these mile markers at the same spots the railroad at one time had them. They show the distance from the start of the railroad in Chicago.

The way back was pretty but I did have to deal with a decent head wind. Winds on the Palouse are usually out of the southwest or west. Today it was out of the northeast.

It was a relief to make it back to Tekoa. That’s Tekoa Mountain in the background looking northeast from the deck of the trestle.

The 287 mile long trail almost spans Washington. Through Eastern Washington it is lightly used. I was the only one on it for all sixteen miles. Earlier this summer I had hiked the section along Pine Creek and Rock Lake. This was the first time I rode part of it. Next time I’ll bring a couple of replacement inner tubes just in case.

Dishman Hills, hiking Iller Creek and the Rocks of Sharon.

Dishman Hills is a natural area made up of three units. Iller Creek is the northern most and highest of them. The Iller Creek trailhead is located west of Dishman Mica Road in a residential area of Spokane Valley.

The trailhead has limited parking which usually isn’t an issue on weekdays. As soon as you start there is a fork. I always take the right path and hike the loop counter clockwise.

This trail follows a dry creek bed at a moderate grade through a thick forest. It isn’t very exciting but it gets you to where your going.

This preserved is managed by Spokane County as a conservation area. As is typical, Spokane County maintains a well built and marked trail system.

At two and a half miles in you come to the Rocks of Sharon. These massive boulders are a popular local rock climbing destination.

I typically spend over an hour exploring the rocks. There are over a dozen of these monoliths lined up on the south side of the high ridge.

This is a perfect place to stop for a break and enjoy the views.

And the view is of the Palouse Prairie, an area of rolling farmland that extends a hundred miles to the south.

North of the rocks is probably the largest collection of antennas and satellite dishes I’ve ever seen. Pretty much every television and radio station in greater Spokane uses this site to transmit their signals.

Another view of interesting rock formations.

At the Rocks of Sharon there is a junction with the Stevens Creek Trailhead connector. By using this access point it is possible to get to the rocks by hiking less than half the distance and a third of the elevation. Drive there though takes an extra hour.

I had the place to myself for a good hour. I highly recommend hiking this trail on weekdays. It can get awfully busy on weekends.

I just wish I hadn’t tried to drive my truck up the trail. No really, this isn’t the first old abandoned vehicle I’ve come across hiking close to Spokane. This was on the East Ridge Trail just after I started my return.

If you hike the loop counter clockwise, you will return to the Iller Creek Trailhead vis the East Ridge Trail.

The East Ridge Trail is more open and you get views of Spokane Valley and Mt. Spokane in the distance.

To the west you can see Mica Peak with it’s distinctive radar dome.

Five miles and twelve hundred feet later, you return to the starting point. Here is a picture at the trailhead of a mountain ash tree.

I first saw this place while flying out of the Spokane airport over a decade ago. It looked so cool from above I did a little research, found the trailheads and have since hiked it about a dozen times. I was a little surprised that the elevation gain turned out to be well over a thousand feet. It is one of the best little hikes close to Spokane that I know of.