I love running out here on sunny days during the winter. It's always nice and warm in the coulee and it almost feels like spring. :) The sun was warm, the falls were happy and I saw some signs of new life on the sagebrush. I had lots of surprises from the bunnies who live in the area which kept me on my toes and hoping to not have a heart attack in the middle of nowhere. It's a super easy, fun little walk and it's great for all ages to get out and enjoy the fresh air!

Another great day climbing all sorts of routes at Frenchman Coulee, with Ian, Emma, Mark, Tim and Jessica! Just like last time, two weeks earlier, we were the first to arrive at the Sunshine Wall, even before the people who had camped at the Coulee - when we left the car they were all in line at the one single toilet. Ian's logic was that we need to do the hard stuff first, and in retrospect it makes sense; whether you do the harder or easier routes first you still become tired, and once you are tired it's harder to motivate yourself to tackle the more difficult climbs. So we started with a few 5.8s. This was another day full of "firsts" for me. By the end of the day each of us Basic Climbing Mountie grads had lead a bolted route at least once. - On my first top-roped climb, Clip em or Skip em (5.8), a great arête route, very physical, but with many excellent holds, about two thirds in the climb my fingers stopped working. I had no strength left, I could not grab on anything. It was like nothing I had experienced. I called it off. After a bit of a rest, I tried again and the second time I made it to the top. - I climbed Stroken' the Chicken (5.6), an easy hand-jam/chimney - Ian led trad on Crossing the Threshold (5.8), a twin crack, and I and the others followed on top-rope - The others also climbed Vantage Point (5.8) which I skipped - just another reason to go back. We left the Sunshine Wall which was getting quite crowded by noon and headed back to The Feathers. In contrast to how things looked two weeks before, there wasn't much of a crowd there, just a handful of climbers. - I lead Feather in My Cap (5.5) - I lead Ruffled Feathers (5.7). On this one I took a leader fall before the last bolt. It wasn't as bad as I feared it would be; I feel like I broke through another mental barrier. - I then climbed Ruffled Feathers again with belay from the top to help Ian clean the anchor. I fell a couple of feet again - this was a clue that I should probably be done for the day, and I finished it with a rappel. - I belayed Ian leading on Satan's Wagon (5.10B). He took a couple of leader falls at the crux and I was able to catch him - another skill that I finally got to use. Nobody else wanted to climb Satan's Wagon, not even top-roped. We just wanted to grab a beer and be done.

My friend Jacob and i decided to explore the area surrounding Echo Basin before the winter hit and the weather was perfect. We got wonderful views and observed rock climbers everywhere.

Thanks to Ian - the Mountaineers climb leader who organized the trip to Kangaroo Temple earlier this summer - I had the opportunity do some rock climbing this weekend at the Frenchman Coulee in Vantage. I had never been to this beautiful place with unique geological features before and hadn't done any sport climbing on vertical rock until that day. I'm a mountain guy - put me on a trail and I fly uphill, get me off trail and I find a route, I love snow and ice, I tackle class 4 scrambling with exposure any day, and I even negotiate the occasional isolated class 5 move un-roped, solo. I participated in a few rock climbs as part of the basic climbing class with the Mountaineers and I thought they were all easy stuff. But rock climbing on a vertical wall? That's a different beast altogether! My battered muscles were just not prepared for this sort of effort. I climbed a few walls, rather on the easier side, but I got tired very quickly and had to take it easy. Maybe the fact that I haven't worked out or climbed anything since the beginning of August had something to do with it too. Anyway I broke a few barriers today. For my own reference I'm trying to remember what routes we climbed but I can't be 100% sure. We started on the Sunshine Wall; there was no one there at 9AM. - My first time sport climbing on a bolted route - Peaceful Warrior (5.6), top-roped - Climbed a full chimney, but man it was hard - Seven Virgins and a Mule (5.7), top-roped - Failed miserably at getting 3 feet off the ground on Tangled Up in Blue (5.9) - Climbed an isolated amorphous column on a route called House of Cards, (5.8), top-roped. I got stuck off route under an overhang 2 feet away from the anchor and decided to call it off rather than getting lowered a few feet to get back on the right route - Back on The Feathers side I climbed Where the Sidewalk Ends (5.3), top-roped - After top-roping first I was confident enough to lead on Where the Sidewalk Ends - my first lead on rock, yay! - Climbed Get the Pever Fever (5.5), top-roped. By now I was toast and couldn't lift my arms. Everyone climbed more than me and seemed in better shape. I clearly need to do more of this if I want to make any sort of progress.

There's a reason no one seems to hike here in the summer. First there's the part about it being inhumanely hot by 8:30am, and then there are the rattlesnakes. We'd come down the night before to catch the Perseids in those clear, eastern Washington skies, intending to camp at Echo Basin just up the road from the trailhead here and then explore this hike in the morning. But last minute we diverted to the Sand Hollow campground south of the bridge where there is camping right along the river/lake (this section of the Columbia is more like a lake between the Wanapum and Rock Island dams). Just after sunset, walking back to the car from our camp spot, the dogs both suddenly jumped, and I heard an unmistakable rattle. Before the dogs could get curious, I gave them a "Leave It" so loud they jumped back a second time. The small snake was just to the side of the path (by some picnic tables!), coiled into the size of a softball and rattling for all it was worth, seemingly as frightened as we'd been. I looked the dogs over carefully and am genuinely grateful to that snake for not taking it beyond rattling. No more trips to the car at dusk, and our enthusiasm for hiking in the dessert was dampened, but the meteors were awesome! The next morning, we drove over for a look at the Frenchman Coulee area. Still spooked by the rattlesnake run-in, I opted against the hike with two dogs but always appreciate a look at the 14-15 million year old basalt lava formations which are among the biggest in the world. Not surprisingly, the waterfall is looking sparse. While chatting with a ranger and relaying the rattlesnake encounter, he said that this has been a bad year for them and that the park rangers had just met about several nests that were recently discovered in one of the camping spots at Echo Basin. Nothing is posted yet, but it's one of the better positioned spots where we've camped in previous years, up the hill from the other road-side areas, well above the bathrooms and behind the big rock formation, so more secluded than the rest of the campground. This year, less optimal -- heads-up. And now my continuing education on helping the dog Survive The Hazards of Nature includes rattlesnakes. While encounters, never mind bites, are rare, it's good to know stuff, and maybe some of you will find this useful. A lot of the commonly held snake-bite treatments are no longer recommended and are either of no benefit or actually harmful. So, if a human or dog is bit, do NOT: tie a tourniquet (it is more likely to lead to an amputation), try to suck out the venom (not effective), mess with any of the snake bite kits (they are mostly about trying to suction out venom which is not considered effective), lance the bite in any way (only increases odds of infection), nor try to catch the snake for identification (seriously). What is currently recommended is to keep the person or dog as still as possible and ideally have them carried back to the car. Keep the bite below their heart, flush it with clean water and apply an antibacterial. It's a great idea to carry Benadryl in your first-aid kit anyway, and here it's the primary recommended first-aid: normal adult dose for humans, and a dose of 2mg/lb for dogs (this is specific for venomous snake bites and double the normal dose for dogs of 1mg/lb but still safe. For dogs, this may be the most critical part of the treatment and potentially life-saving. To be safe for dogs, you want to carry only the one-ingredient Benadryl, no additives. Any generic is fine as long as there's only the one ingredient: Diphenhydramine.) If the bite is on a limb, wrap a light compression bandage above the bite -- again, not a tourniquet, but loose enough to easily slip a finger under. The idea is to just slow the progression of the venom. Evidently snake bites hurt like a sonofabitch, so if you don't already anyway, you might consider carrying aspirin for your dog and something stronger for humans. (Never give dogs tylenol, advil, or any of the generic equivalents. Only aspirin or a canine-specific pain killer. Same as for the human variety, I save a few pain-killers from prescription events to keep in my first-aid kit. Especially good is Tramadol which is an opiate safe for both dogs and humans.) And get them to a hospital/vet as soon as possible. I had the numbers of emergency vets in Ellensburg and Yakima on my phone and am grateful to have not needed them. This is an amazing area and well worth exploring, just maybe not with dogs in the middle of summer. Another time! Some pretty good imagery and info on the local geology to be had here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssy_UDPAOZ8