My wife and I were in Walla Walla at six AM for the Hot Air Balloon Stampede takeoff. It was fun but after about an hour and a half all of the balloons had floated away. We were ready for our ascent too so we headed for the Blue Mountains. The Pomeroy Ranger Station advised that the Lookout trail might still be under snow. But the warm sun was shining and we wanted to get up on a ridge so we decided to try it anyway.
The long road to the Teepee Trailhead was in good shape. What little snow remained near the trailhead had been plowed. There were meadows along the road full of flowers. The parking area at the trailhead was empty.
There were a few blow-downs on the trail but they weren't too difficult to get past. There was also quite a few patches of snow on the way to the ridgetop but by following the sawed blow-downs we were able to follow the trail. The ridge top was free of snow and a variety of flowers were already blooming. We reached the lookout and tried the door. Locked! We had to settle for the next best thing and set up our tent. Just in time too because our warm sunshine had turned to cold rain. Then the wind changed direction and our leeward camp site was now a windward camp site. Then it started to hail. It got a little scary and we decided that if our tent poles snapped we were going to pry the lock of of the lookout door. Fortunately the wind finally died down and we got a pretty good night's sleep. The clouds were at the same elevation as us in the morning and we had our hot coffee in intermittant sun and fog. We explored the rest of the ridge for a while and then headed back.
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