I didn't like the forecast for heavy rain and thunderstorms so I headed east hoping for sunshine. The drive started a little rough. Heavy morning traffic on 405 allowed me to travel about 4 miles in the first hour. Then the rain started and there was a lot of standing water on I-90 headed over the pass. By the time I got to Cle Elum the clouds lifted and I was relieved to know that I would get a dose of Vitamin D after all. Frenchman Coulee is easy to find. Take exit 143 and follow the signs. before you get to the trailhead you will see a Discovery Pass parking lot with pit toilet. This is where the rock climbers hang out. Use the facilities and head down the road where you will find the trailhead on the right. The trail is really an old road that runs parallel to the one you drive in on. Straight and flat. Pretty if you look up at the rock formations and clouds. I left the pups at home knowing if be in rattlesnake territory. Happy to say I didn't see any. The closer you get to the waterfall, the more garbage you see. Junk that got dumped off the road, broken glass, etc. I tried to focus on the clouds and the wind, headed back to the car and drove up the road to the rock climbing area. I climbed around there for a while and enjoyed the view from the top. Much cleaner up there. Tip- If you want to explore this type of terrain, I'd recommend the Ancient Lakes trail. Also, the Ginko interpretive center in Vantage is closed on Mondays.

Followed the driving directions and made it without any problems. Pulled into a parking area off the side of the road. We could see many rock climbers around and making their way up the feather columned rocks. It would have been cool just to sit and watch them but realized this wasn't the spot to park for the hike we wanted to go on. Continued down the road just a little bit further and there was a parking lot with a pit toilet and trailhead. Discover Pass is required and there is no pay station or day fee area. I had two boys with me, 11 and 12 years old. They had fun climbing around the large rock formation just into the trail. There were a few trails to take. We went on a couple. They are easy and no major inclines or obstacles. Trails don't really lead to too much. On our way back it started to rain and there was no where to take cover so we quickly headed back to the truck. We had seen the waterfall on the right when had come in and decided to go check it out. We waited out the rain and was rewarded with a double rainbow. Places to park on both sides of the road. There were even a couple campers on the coulee side. There's no trailhead sign for getting to the waterfall. We just found a way down and headed towards the fall. Even for the end of the summer there was a good amount of water coming down and it was so beautiful and refreshing on a sunny day. (apparently there is a geocache out there, too)

More photos on Flickr - http://bit.ly/frenchman-coulee-v Our original plan was foiled when weather didn’t look too promising around Stevens Pass. Pup and I had been to this coulee four other times in two different locations; this time we explored the north rim. Parked at the pullout just past the intersection of Silica Road and Road 2.5 (interesting road name) on the left hand side and then we started walking westward toward the rim. It was sunny yet breezy when we started so it wasn’t too terribly hot. Surprised to not see any bugs flying around, except the annoying horseflies on a few occasions. It was nice to get a closer and a different look at some of the rock features we had seen before from down below. The climbing area across the coulee looked to be busy with the number of cars parked in the lot, and shouting of climbing commands could occasionally be heard. At first I had planned on going down into the coulee from west end and walking to the small waterfall at head of the coulee. Since we had already been there three other times, I figured we’d do something different by roaming our way west to the river instead. As we got closer to the river bank the terrain became less rocky, and the Vantage Bridge could be seen in the distant south. But then it disappeared as the elevation gradually declined. River wasn’t terribly busy, a few boats here and there during our one-hour stay. A couple of them had music blasted, but far away enough from us and the other boats to be noisy. The community of Wanapum could be seen to the north right before the river bend. After doing some research online, interesting that this riverfront community actually belongs to the city of Quincy, 20 miles to the northeast. I love being on this side of the state when weather in the Cascades doesn’t cooperate. The smell of desert plants, the different bird species, and the seemingly endless skyline make me want to find a big rock and nap when the sun isn’t glaring. The thing I was mostly grateful for was the absence of snakes! After several run-ins with rattlesnakes (they warned us with the rattling, whew...) on the south rim by Echo Basin back in January, this time I was on absolute high alert. For a faster return back to the car, we followed old tire tracks quarter of a mile north parallel to our inbound track.

WARNING about the bugs! If you plan on taking this exact hike to the falls, it is apparently swarming with mosquitos. We did not go all the way to the falls because we were warned off by people coming the other way. While I didn't personally see the bugs, I certainly saw the dozens of red welts from the bites all over this guy's body. That was more than enough to convince us to turn around. There were no bugs to be found anywhere else in the area. It's a little hard for me to rate this hike. As written, it's a pretty plain, uninteresting trail. It gets two stars because (as one local told us) you feel a little like you're part of an old western walking between the basalt rock walls of the coulee. We did it as the second part of our Frenchman Coulee adventure, and I would urge people to skip it and instead follow the trail we took for the first part. Referred to as the "Central Rib Trail" in John Soennichsen's "Channeled Scablands Guide", it follows the Sunshine Wall, to the tip of the wall, then down to the valley and the road, ending across the way from the small, gravel parking lot mentioned in the instructions here. It starts at the parking lot up the road. There are two where climbers park to camp the night, we started at the trail head in the one that has a pit toilet. That rib trail is a narrow, rocky, sometimes a little hazardous trail with amazing views of Echo Basin and the (I'm assuming) dry falls that would have emptied into it. You can even see the indent that must have been the falls' splash pool thousands of years ago. On the day we went there were a lot of climbers taking advantage of the wall, and we were able to ask them for advice and directions when we had questions. There is one narrow gap between a couple large basalt columns that is probably the only part of the trail that's difficult to find. Other than that, just take it to the tip of the wall and then descend back to the valley floor. We briefly considered following the wall around the tip, paralleling Vantage road, but the trail seemed to disappear. More daring adventurers may want to continue on to see what, if anything, is there.