Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area — Thursday, May. 6, 2010

Central Washington > Yakima

I drove over the hill to Whiskey Dick to get some sun and ended up two miles from the car in a snowstorm - go figure. So much for the weather forecast. The day started well, with sunny skies and warm temps. I followed the hike described in Best Desert Hikes to start with but (maybe I'm missing something here) I found it uninspiring. To boot, the road in is extremely rough. Returning a couple of miles back down the road to the large parking lot marking the other DNR trailhead I hiked up the trail, which is actually another rough dirt road, toward the PSE windmill farm. The wildflowers were much more interesting here and the windmills make an interesting backdrop. Then the weather started going bad, with intermittent rain and sun. Then came hail and lightning and finally a downpour of slushy snow. The dirt on this road, when wet, assumes the consistency of concrete, sticking to boots in great clods of mud. I had to stop every five steps to knock off the ever-growing and very heavy clods. It doesn't get any better than this! Of course when I returned to the Eastside, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, etc etc.