Got an early start from seattle. Drove all the way down to the basin, where you can park a couple cars (cement all the way). From here we hiked into the coulee. We did a quick jaunt up so we were getting more level with the sunshine wall. But we headed backdown to the path to get some cool shots of the wall. Its really a short little hike to the end. And we backtracked and entered echo basin toward the waterfall. The wild grass here was super pretty and super windy. Some cool wild mushrooms along the path too. We could see snake holes / dens off the path, but no actual snakes. If you were to bring a dog, i would keep it on a close leash. Theres no actual camping down in the coulee or basin, but you can drive back up to some car camp style places. This is also where the climbing company has home camp. it was too crowded up here for us loner overnighters. so we decided to just drive on home to our comfy beds, lol. Did i mention it was windy? But super sunny and the views were great. Huge plus is that its hella closer (drive-wise) than to ancient lakes.

Fabulous morning. I arrived at Frenchman Coulee at 9 am. The drive after leaving I90 was quick and easy. There were a good number of people camping. I stopped at the parking area near The Feathers climbing area approximately 1.5 miles along Vantage Road and snapped some pics of Sunshine Wall. After, I continued down the road for approximately another 1 mile and parked along the right side of the road at the gate to Frenchman Coulee. The gate to Echo Basin is on the left side of the road. Instead of walking the gated (right) road down the middle of the coulee, I walked across the coulee, turned East and traveled along the bases of the cliffs until I reached the waterfall. I sat in the sun at the waterfall before returning to my car by way of the gated road. Leaving, I drove to the end of the road to the Frenchman Coulee Receation Area paved parking lot with facilities and boat launch on the Columbia River. I enjoyed brilliant sunshine and warm weather.

Ethan & I headed over to Frenchman Coulee on this sunny, warm day. We went left at the first fork in the road/trail and followed it across the mouth of the coulee. When we got to the next fork we went left again and walked the road/trail north up Babcock Bench. After about 1/4 mile or so we followed some bike tracks up a small knoll for views up and down the bench. The road/trail stayed on the east side of the bench, so we decided to walk cross country over to the cliffs above the Columbia River. Along the way we crossed the head of a scenic side-coulee with a sand dune and then made our way north along the cliffs to a nice lunch spot with views up and down the river. After an hour or so we headed back by a somewhat lower route. Along the way we saw quite a bit of the endemic Robinson's Onion in bloom & in bud, a few yellow bells, buttercups, and desert parsleys along with the leaves of death camas, sagebrush mariposa lily, and balsamroot, one clump of which had 12 buds. We heard meadowlarks and Ethan once again claimed he heard canyon wrens. The weather was much better than predicted, the hike turned out to be more scenic than we expected, and though Frenchman Coulee was crawling with climbers, we had the bench to ourselves. What a great day!

The trail, which is an old dirt road, starts on the north side of the road. Across the road you can also hike into Echo Basin. Once on the trail take the first fork to the right and follow it all the way up the coulee to the falls. If you want a quicker access to the falls, you can park on the side of Vantage Road east of the trailhead and hike down to base of the falls from there.

We get a ton of rain around this time of the year, and yet every year it seems like we're getting more and more of it due to the lack of sunshine. Another trip out to chase the sun in Central/Eastern Washington! This was the pups and my fourth time visiting the coulee. To make things a little more interesting this time, I decided to walk around Echo Basin instead. All the other times our trip would consist of walking over to the waterfall at east end of the north basin. Parked the car at west end of Sunshine Wall just off Old Vantage Highway, and then we proceeded to hike southerly toward southwest end of the basin. I was surprised to see how sandy this part of the coulee was the farther south we hiked, gotta love the geology of our state! A sandy gully draping down from edge of the cliffs allowed us access to top of the coulee. Once at the top, we traversed counterclockwise around the cliff bands and made occasional stops for photos. East end of the basin where a stream flowed down into the basin was a perfect spot to break while enjoying sunny views to the west. After an hour we continued our hike, went past the trail leading down to the Feathers climbing area, and then got above cliffs on the north side of the basin. The sun had just set while atop the Sunshine Wall climbing area, with plenty of daylight to scramble back down west end of the coulee to conclude the loop of our trip. Flickr: http://bit.ly/frenchman-coulee-iv