Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area

On Monday me and a couple buddies hiked outta vantage into the whiskey dick. The weather was hot and dry sometimes around 90 degrees down in the coulees. We hiked the old road just west of ginko state park, up to park peak and north along the wall past hole in the wall, spring cayuse creek (which was dry) and up to the mouth of whiskey dick creek. The views day one of babcocks bench and the Columbia were awesome their were still a few wildflowers hanging around too. Whiskey dick creek was running but there was no easy water access so we hiked out and filtered water out of the cloumbia. Saw lots of birds of prey osprey, baldy, red tail etc. As well as a few mountain blue birds. One of my friends saw a rabbit and I saw a haron perched on the river bank. That evening was warm and loud from the crickets, frogs and bats. The stars were awesome. Day two we set out following the road up the whiskey dick, just outta camp the creek ran across the trail and my friends de booted to cross the 9+ inch deep water. About a half mile after that the road turned away from our intended destination and we continued off trail, the road was supposed to continue and there were portions that we used to continue on. Kohler springs was running. We hiked up off the road on to the Platue on the south side of the whiskey dick creek coulée where after a little bit of route finding, wandering and looking at the map we found the road continuing south over the ridge down to lone star spring and rocky coulee.the climb up the ridge was rough in the sweltering heat and the packs soon felt heavy. Lone star spring is not running. There are trees and vegetation from the water and two small muddy stagnate puddles so instead of camping there (which would have presented more probles then water) we hiked the remaning 4 1/2 miles down rocky coulée through hells kitchen and back to the trailhead. All in all was a fun trip the heat and lack of water were a little disappointing but the views of babcocks bench and frenchmans coulée defiantly made up for it. O' by the way there were a heard of sheep at the trailhead when we got back.