Hike at Rock Creek

This weekend's outing was to the Rock Creek Management Area, also known as the "Scablands". I don't know exactly where we were, but the last town we saw was Endicott, Washington, and we were about an hour and a half from Pullman. It was a pretty interesting area. While driving, you are surrounded by rolling fields, and then all of the sudden giant rock formations begin jutting up from the ground. On the subject of "getting there," we once again found out how unreliable Google directions are! We were starting out a dirt road that was apparently a shortcut. The shortcut ended up costing us quite a bit of extra time however. This road is actually closed from November until mid-March. Once we reached the sign that stated this, Brian and Jenny - the other two people we were hiking with - were already stuck in his 2WD Nissan pick-up. As they tried to back out to the main road, his truck just gradually slid into the ditch. After a couple of attempts, and lots of mud slinging, Greg finally managed to pull him out, and we all made it back to the main road to take the long way around! Greg's boots weighed an extra 10lbs. by the time we were back on our way from all the mud caked on them.

After doubling back more than a few times, we finally reached our destination. Best I could tell, Rock Creek Managment Area is a swath of this "scabland" that ranchers can graze their horses or cattle on with permit. The "trail" was just a farm road weaving between the giant rock formations.

The majority of the road however, is seasonal and was not yet open to vehicles. So we walked about 3 miles out to find the waterfall. Here we are at the very beginning of the hike. That's Brian (and his dog Touk), Jenny, and Greg. Dixie had to sit out this hike because she has been a little under the weather.

This was our first wildlife spotting! By the way, this is what they call a potato bug out here. I don't think I would have wanted to dig potatoes back home if our potato bugs looked like this!

The only other wildlife that we spotted during the hike was a hawk. Greg was pretty disappointed. The scenery however, looked like it was straight from some western movie. I was just waiting for a whole line of feathered heads to pop up over one of the ridges and stare silently but ominously down at us. Sometimes my imagination gets a little out of control. :)

We finally reached the waterfalls, which looked very out of place among all the other scenery. Unfortunately, the water was too high for us to get in a position to take pictures of the big waterfall, so we had to settle for this smaller one. It was still pretty neat. On the three mile walk out, I was very skeptical about seeing an actual waterfall in this part of the country, but I was wrong. The day was very overcast, so there wasn't much color to be captured.

We (finally) made it back to the truck, and then back out to the main road without getting lost or stuck again. We were all famished, so we stopped off in Colfax, Washington for some nice, cheesy Mexican food! Lastly, here is a picture of Brian's dog, Touk. He is a mixture of Border Collie and Golden Retriever. I had to post his picture because he reminds me so much of Oreo, the dog we had growing up.

That was the extent of our excitement for the week. We are tenatively planning a trip to Olympic National Park over on the Washington coast for spring break in mid-March. The pictures on the website look pretty amazing, so let's hope everything works out!