Looking for a Snow Free Path

Walter in the rear view mirror

Yesterday was Morgan's 4th Deathday. It just seems so weird. I had the day off which was probably a good thing. I hung around the house with Nancy and Seth for a while, but Seth had to go to work and Nancy did not want to go anywhere. I had to get out.

We have had a tremendous amount of snow this year. I decided to take Walter out to the sagebrush where we would not have deep snow and go for a nice long walk. Well, there was a LOT more snow out in the scablands than I expected. We went out to our favorite old Fishtrap Lake area. Instead of parking on the Fishtrap road we parked at the Miller Ranch. There are gates that you have to open and go through to get to the trails and there was so much snow that I could not get the gate open. So we headed down the closed road to get to another area where we could access the interior of the BLM land.

The road we walked down

There was still 2-3 feet of snow in places with a lot of drifts, yet some areas were bare. We walked nearly a mile down the road and the other gate was chained shut. I debated on climbing it until I stuck my pole through to test the snow depth. It was pretty deep. I don't know why I thought it would be better on the other side of the fence! The walk on the road was pretty exhausting. I would take a step and just sink down an inch or less, then take another and sink down a foot. It was also sunny and warm and melty which made it even harder to walk in. Even so, we had a nice walk and a good time.

After we got back in the car I decided to carry on down the road towards the little hamlet of Sprague. It is not very far at all from Fishtrap Lake. We drove around lovely Sprague and headed back to I-90. Then I saw a sign for Harrington. Well, I have never been to Harrington so I decided right then and there I had to go. It is about 25 miles from Sprague. We drove through a Palouse/Channel Scabland transition zone. Lots of rolling wheat fields punctuated by rocky basalt coulees. Pretty cool.

The little town of Harrington is pretty nice. I saw a couple of cool old houses and the "downtown" area has lots of brick buildings. I once read that all of the brick used in this general area came from a brickwork near Springdale (another cute little hamlet to the north). Having gotten our fill of Harrington, we continued on north to Davenport. It is a nice drive. I almost turned left and went to Odessa but I needed to get home before it was too late in the day. I have only driven through Davenport on Highway 2 and never experienced the seedy underbelly. It's not too seedy. Looks a lot like Harrington without as much brick. Then of course we headed back to Spokane on Highway 2 through Reardan. The road was nice and clear but still a lot of snow out in the fields. When I go through these little towns I always want to stop at the local diner for biscuits and gravy. But I had a cheese sandwich out by Fishtrap so I was set.

Walter is having some intestinal strife now which really concerns me given the huge surgery he just had. I collected a sample and will have it tested tomorrow. Hopefully it is just some bugs or something. He kept waking me up all night needing to go out. I am now worried of course that we over did it yesterday even though it was only a 2 mile walk on a flat road.

I just bought a new hiking guide with my first paycheck. I know, I should not have splurged but I had to (I also got my hair cut which I really had to do too). It is the best 50 desert hikes of Eastern Washington, or something like that. There are lots of places in it that I never knew about that I am looking forward to checking out this spring...when the snow is not too deep to walk!