Trail Lake CouleeTrail Lake, a tiny gem of a lake just south of the massive impoundment of Banks Lake, draws more than its fair share of waterfowl, and not just during the winter migration. Year-round populations of mallards, mergansers, herons, and scaups call this lake basin home. Hike through the gate and begin your journey. For more than 2 miles, you'll follow a narrow dirt road atop the dike that forms one of the walls of an irrigation canal bringing water down from Banks Lake, over Summer Falls, and into Billy Clapp Lake. Grand views across the coulee are to be had all along the dike. At nearly 2.5 miles, you'll reach the edge of Trail Lake, which is a popular destination for hunters in duck hunting season (a good reason to visit in spring). Reaching Trail Lake's north end at 2.5 miles you have many options. You could stop and enjoy the views of the lake and its resident waterfowl before heading home for a 5-mile round trip, or you could head up the jeep track that leads west from the end of the lake and climbs into a small unnamed coulee, where you can explore the local desert flora. This latter option could add between 1 and 5 miles, depending on how far you want to ramble.
Driving Directions:
From Ellensburg, drive east on Interstate 90 to exit 151 (State Route 283, signed "Soap/Soap Lake). Drive through Ephrata. At Soap Lake, turn north on SR 17. Continue to the junction with SR 2 near the Dry Falls Dam. Turn right (east) onto SR 2 and continue 2 miles to Coulee City. Veer onto Fourth Street, and in 0.3 mile turn left onto Main Street. In 0.2 mile turn right onto Pinto Ridge Road. Drive 6.1 miles and, just before crossing the bridge over the main canal, turn right onto a dirt jeep track. Park by the gate, making certain you don't block the roadway or the gate. Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife permit required. Recent Trip Reports
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I went with most of my usual crew over to Trail Lake Coulee as described in Best Desert Hikes, but...
I went with most of my usual crew over to Trail Lake Coulee as described in Best Desert Hikes, but we did not have the hike we expected. When we arrived at the gate where the book describes parking, we found that it was just a small barbwire gate that was being opened by someone to let his van through. He waved us through as well and, since we could see a number of other vehicles up the ditch-bank road (mostly fishermen), we just kept driving and made it easily all the way to Trail Lake. The lake itself was quite underwhelming, being just a barely noticeable wide spot in the highway-sized canal. We were happy to have driven the road, however, because it did not look like an inviting walk at this time of year: giant sand & mud flats on the east side of the road and all the rocks dug up from the canal on the opposite side. It also meant that we could explore the country between Trail Lake & Deep Lake, including a small coulee that looked like it had a short slot. We walked through the little coulee at the back of Trail Lake on an old road that climbed out of the back end of the coulee to a junction. Here I misread the map (a very rare occurrence) and we headed north instead of west. There were a few cows grazing throughout the area and the vegetation was pretty much chomped to the ground, it was cloudier than I expected, and the landscape at this point was thoroughly uninspiring. I was wondering about driving for 21/2 hours just to get some exercise. After a while we walked down into a sort of amphitheater and I headed confidently towards a corner that I was sure would lead us into the slot canyon, only to find that it was just a draw that took us up onto a sort of peninsula into the amphitheater. I found a good viewpoint, but could not make the terrain fit the map and I announced to the others that I had no idea where we were on the map. Brian finally figured it out map and then it all made sense. I could see the coulee where the slot should be, so we planned a loop. First we walked a little farther north to see if we could come to an overlook of Deep Lake, but there was another bench in the way, so we sat on the edge of a small cliff above a large circular depression drilled out by the Missoula floods. We had a nice view over to the cliffs above Deep Lake. After lunch we walked south along the north rim of the coulee that holds Perry Spring. The views across the countryside in into the coulee were very nice. We made our way over to the coulee that hopefully had the slot, but it just turned out to be a small butte in the middle of the coulee. I called it No-Slot Butte. A little farther on in this coulee we came upon an area with quite a few small granite erratics left over from the floods. Exiting this coulee, we made our way east back to the car. We encountered a number of fences, but all had gates that were easily passed through. There were quite a few wildflowers, but nothing really showy: buttercups (Karen found one with 13 petals), yellow bells, a couple of small desert parsleys, and sagebrush violets. There were lots of clouds with sunshine now and then. Though not the hike we had expected, by the time we got back to the car we had all had a great time.
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Trail Lake Coulee. Photo by David Hagen.
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