Frenchman Coulee — Sunday, Mar. 8, 2020

Ethan, Karen, & I headed over to the Frenchman Coulee area on this sunny, mild day.  Instead of stopping at Frenchman Coulee proper, we drove to the boat launch at the end of the road and parked in the Grant Co PUD's Frenchman Coulee Rec Area parking lot.  From here we followed the trail along the river/lakeshore until it cliffed out, then started up the sidecanyon south of Pt 1225.  Our goal was to climb up the sidecanyon to the old road built in 1918 (replaced in 1930 by Hwy 10) and then walk south above the river/lake.  Unfortunately, we hadn't gone far when the effects of too little sleep and a lingering cold let me know that climbing up the canyon was not for me on this day, so we turned around and went back to to river/lake and found a nice sandy spot with rocks to lean against for lunch.  We lounged here in the warm sun for a very pleasant hour or so before heading back.  We had interesting clouds all day and along the way we saw a couple of plants of woolly-pod locoweed in bloom, emerging balsamroot leaves, a large flock of coots, and heard a canyon wren.