I had one last opportunity to grab some rock this year before I start thinking of snow!

Routes climbed:

• Clip 'em or skip 'em 5.8 (lead)
• Vantage Point 5.8
• Whipsaw 5.9
• Crossing the Threshold 5.8 trad
• Air Guitar 5.10a trad - Ian led this awesome crack; I zipped up on it easier than I expected but the thought of ever leading it gives me shivers.
• Ruffled Feathers 5.7 (lead)
• Altar of Sacrifice 5.7 (lead)
• Jesus Saves 5.8 (lead) - short but hard!
• Notch route 5.6
• The Uprising 5.8 - I remember how impossible this route looked a couple of years ago!

I lead the routes I marked with (lead), top-roped the rest. Ian - definitely the Mountaineers climb leader I've learned the most from - lead all the truly hard stuff. I can now trust myself to lead harder sport routes; one day I'll trust myself enough to lead trad cracks at Vantage.

That's what I call a productive day at the office!

Had a kid free weekend so decided to find an easy hike not to far off the highway. Weather was nice, around 60, and sunny. A little smokey but not bad. Had our dog, Hank the Corgi, with us. A few bugs but not bad at all, mostly just butterfly's and crickets or grasshoppers (or I'm completely wrong and they weren't either of those insects :). 

Trail starts off as a rocky road and then turns into a sandy road about mid way. Despite the warning of rattle snakes we still let the dog wander ahead, off-leash. That was a mistake as we walked up on a rattlesnake sunning it self in the middle of the sandy road. No harm came to us or the dog but the incident did scare the hell out of me as my dog was on his way to see what all the racket was about; our yelling and screaming, plus maybe his own survival instinct, caused him to run the other way before he got close enough that the snake could strike. We won't bring Hank back next time. 

Other than that encounter, the hike was as promised. If you don't want to walk the four miles round trip, I saw several hikers coming down the grade right by the waterfall. Oh, and you can see the falls from the road as you drive in, and while on the trail. 

Started at the gravel parking lot around 11am, which was later than I had hope to start, but my buddy and I dragged our feet in the morning getting ready.

First part of the hike a nice breeze was blowing, and we found it very enjoyable, however, the desert heat can be deceiving, and I cannot stress enough, DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS HIKE IN THE HEAT WITHOUT ENOUGH WATER. In fact, if you are prone to heat exhaustion or overheating, I simply would not attempt this hike on a hot day at all.  Nothing is scarier than heat exhaustion when you're 2 miles from your car, and there is very little shade in sight, which is exactly what happened to me, even though I was carrying over a gallon of water, (which I consumed pretty quickly in the heat).

My friend is less susceptible to heat than I am (Scandinavian vs. Italian heritage) and he said it was wonderful, but just know yourself, and your limits because you don't want to find yourself in a dangerous situation.

Other than almost overheating, the hike was truly beautiful.  We enjoyed the scenery, the scent of sage, and some, but not all of the wildflowers had bloomed. 

We also took a detour to poke around in some old cars that had been dumped over the side of a cliff about halfway to the waterfall.

We heard but never saw one rattlesnake, and there were quite a few mosquitos, so I highly recommend bug spray for this one.

We started from the campsite instead of the parking lot. This made the hike to the falls a lot shorter then what is on the directions. Between the parking lot and the falls is a really flat, dusty walk with lots of nice scenery. There is a bit more of a climb between the falls and the camp site but no problems for kids and dogs.

The falls are pretty in the spring. We managed to climb all the way up to the wall and got some great photos over the falls. If you want to go up then be prepared for a climb. The shale is loose and you could slip and slide rather easily so be careful.

The mosquitoes were thick in the valley, bring bug spray.

If you want a more challenging hike then go to the rock climb area. We hiked through a rock crevasse and along the backside of the cliffs. Very beautiful back there, highly recommended for more skilled hikers. You have to climb into and out of this area but well worth it.

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.