A great getaway on the first day of winter. The sky was overcast and the weather mild. Although there weren’t as many birds as I’ve seen in the past, there were plenty of photo opportunities. The loop trail was closed, so I proceeded through the refuge and went east along the Washougal Dyke. The views here were as good as in the refuge, making this a worthy alternative to the full loop.

The trailhead has reopened after being closed for several months following a fire that destroyed a boardwalk. For more info check out this story in The Columbian: http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/apr/02/steigerwald-reopens-recovery-continues-signs-of-li/

Very nice area. Saw maybe a total of 10 hawks here, very exciting. If you have allergies to grass this would not be the place to come.

Today we opted to look for a quick hike near the house that could provide for some quick exercise. I recalled that my middle son took a field trip to Steigerwald Lake last year and really enjoyed it. A quick trip to wta.org confirmed the information we needed and off we went. Bottom line, while this hike is a easy 3 miles, it is very relaxing and the views are great, not to mention an abundance of wildlife. We will for sure be back for more and make the connecting trail down to Captain William Clark to make it a good 6 miles or more. Fun time!

Lola and I are on a quest to hike every trail listed in Craig Romano's new book in the Day Hiking Series - Columbia River Gorge. Since she's still too young to go in a pack, we're trying to find the stroller friendly trails first starting with the Weldon Wagon Road last week (although we found out it is a bit too narrow for the jogging stroller towards the top). The Gibbons Creek Wildlife Art Trail is at the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge just at the edge of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. It is a 2.8 mile "lollipop" loop, however, one section of the loop is closed for the wildlife from October 1st to April 30th. Since we hiked it on May 1st it was quite busy with hikers and birders. The "no jogging" sign seemed odd to us at first (Britta and I both enjoy jogging), but once we got into the quite of the trail we realized that it was nice to have everyone going the same slow pace as we took in all the sights and sounds of the refuge. We saw and heard lots of birds and some painted turtles too. The osprey nest was really cool and so were the swallows that were zooming all over the place. We also saw Canada Goose, Mallards, and I'm pretty sure I heard a redwing blackbird. There looks to be a lot of restoration work going on with newly planted small trees and shrubs protected by plastic tubes presumably from the deer (we saw some of those too). I know that Britta and I enjoyed the hike and I think Lola did too, we'll definitely be back to see how the restoration efforts evolve.