Frenchman Coulee, Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area, Dusty Lake & Ancient Lakes — Tuesday, May. 9, 2017

The goal was to find flowers, and I was disappointed at all three places. The "Quincy Lakes" part of the trip was along the butte *above* Dusty Lake and its coulee (south rim). I parked at the Evergreen Reservoir parking lot and walked on the road around the reservoir past the sign that said "Gate Closed Ahead--Turn Around Here." I walked past the gate to the last little abandoned parking area and started the hike there. (You don't have to park at the same place I did, you can drive another .5 or 1 mile toward the locked gate.) The trail does a lot of up-and-down for the first 1-1.5 miles. At one point it drops down sharply to a point under a very full water birch (at least I think it was a water birch), and you have to decide whether to take off your shoes or choose some other option for crossing a creek. The crossing is not very wide, but too far for this 63-year-old to jump across, and the stepping stones in the creek looked very unstable. I saw a trail on the other side of the creek, so I turned around, climbed up the gully, and went cross-country around a small knob just to the north to get to that trail without getting wet. After that minor hassle, everything afterwards was a gentle up-and-down with plenty of opportunities for side trips to look down into the coulee where Dusty Lake is located. You'll know that you're in the same place I was if you see grape vines on a hill to your left, and the coulee on your right. In all, I walked about 3 miles on trails and abandoned jeep tracks from where I parked towards the Columbia River. I saw one large gopher snake (no rattlers)--we sure startled each other! If you want to do the standard hike to Dusty Lake, the trail head is a short distance after the first privy that you pass on the right after turning off the paved road onto the dirt WRA road. The other two hikes were very short--in each case one mile in and one mile out. As I said, the main motivation for the day was to find flowers, and when I did find them, it looked like I was just a day or two too late. The usual suspects--balsamroot, asters, dwarf waterleaf. Could it be that I'm off-base and the opposite is true--the real show has just begun? Note: I clicked "Road suitable for all vehicles" because the WTA system demands that I click on something, but that's not true for Whiskey Dick. There are two starting points for Whiskey Dick mountain, and I wouldn't try either one without a high-clearance vehicle/4x4 instead of a 20-year-old Geo Prizm.