Palouse Falls — Saturday, Mar. 28, 2015

Eastern Washington > Palouse and Blue Mountains

This is a beautiful early-season route for a spring overnight backpacking trip. There don’t appear to be many places in Eastern Washington that combine a hike with the possibility for an overnight stay. One idea, suggested by hiking author Alan Bauer on a discussion board (http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11981), is to hike from Lyons Ferry State Park at the south end of the Palouse River, and hike north up the canyon to Palouse Falls State Park, which has a campground. This same hike is described as a day hike in a WTA trip report (http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/trip-reports/trip_report.2014-04-24.4029668621). There’s no official trail, although the area is covered with informal trails. I started with the rough route described in that report, tweaking it a bit to follow a suggestion the author of that report received after their hike. People interested in following my route can find it at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0qD1pAM8eYlNzFSLUtlZU9IVjQ/view?usp=sharing. The route measures only about 6 miles long in one direction, for a total hike of about 12 miles. Caution: Use this route at your own risk. This is not an official trail, and plenty of hazards exist: * Many of the informal trails are high up on the high canyon walls. In several places, the trail comes close to the canyon rim. The trails are evidence that many people have crossed these sections safely many times. But no barrier would prevent someone from walking too close to the cliff edge, and a fall from the higher cliffs would almost certainly be fatal. I have no love of heights, and my route avoids some of the more daring clifftop paths that others might be completely comfortable with. * The route includes two points that involved scrambling up or down a short rock face, each perhaps 2 meters high. You could find detours around those points. * The route crosses loose scree slopes that could be prone to slides. * At one point, the route climbs a rather steep slope going all the way from the level of the river to the canyon rim. This is not an easy climb. * There are no signs, and very little traffic on the trail. I didn’t encounter a single person on the trail in either direction. You should feel comfortable following a path on a GPS or map. * The land between Lyons Ferry State Park and Palouse Falls State Park is open for hunting. I heard the report of gunshots while hiking. Given the above risks, I wouldn’t personally feel comfortable taking a young child on this hike. You could find other routes further away from the river that would likely be safer, albeit with lesser views. Warnings aside, this is a *spectacular* hike in the spring, and a fun early-season backpacking trip. The desert is in bloom, and the walls of the canyon are striped with lush green, grassy slopes. There are birds everywhere. I started from a parking lot in Lyons Ferry State Park. For the past few years, that park hasn’t been operated by the state, but coming this May, the state is reactivating it as a state park. I didn’t have any problems leaving my car at the trailhead; I left a Discover Pass visible for good measure. Since the park is in flux, I’d recommend checking with park officials about parking before leaving your car there. The route passes by several rockshelters, including the historically significant Marmes Rockshelter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmes_Rockshelter). There’s not much for the untrained layperson to find in these, but they’re still interesting to see. The campground at Palouse Falls State Park does not take reservations. Although it was early in the season, when I reached the park around 4:00 pm, car campers had already claimed about two-thirds of the sites. There’s a small fee for a campsite (currently, $12). NOTE: At the moment, the water taps at Palouse Falls State Park have been turned off due to issues with water quality. You’ll need to pack in water for the evening. Since my route passed by the river, it was easy enough to fill up with water from the Palouse River. The river water is muddy, and needs to be filtered, but otherwise seemed fine. It’s fun to watch the yellow-bellied marmots running along the cliff’s edge at the Palouse Falls overlook. The falls are certainly nice to see, but I personally found the canyon views much more impressive. And walking across desert meadows in pleasant sunny springtime weather was a treat.

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0qD1pAM8eYlNzFSLUtlZU9IVjQ/view