Frenchman Coulee — Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020

I led my 4th Winter Walk of the season for the Cascadians to Frenchman Coulee on this cloudy, cool day.  We walked the usual route up the coulee to the waterfall, then walked a little ways west and climbed talus at the base of some cliffs up to where we had access to the bench at the top of the north wall of the coulee.  Some of the talus was a little loose which was nerve-wracking for a couple members of the party, but we all made it to the top just fine.  We then walked west along the top of the cliffs for about 1/2 mile and found a nice spot for lunch looking up the coulee.  After 45 min or so we continued walking west along the cliffs to the mouth of the coulee, then  dropped down to Babcock Bench on easy slopes.  From here it was an easy walk along the old 2-track back to the cars.  We didn't see any other hikers except for a couple of other parties on the floor of the coulee when we were up on top and another couple and their dog when we were almost back to the cars.  But we did see buttercups and desert parsleys in bloom and some of us saw a coyote.