Hi everyone!

Kris and I went out to Eastern Washington this weekend to camp with some friends by Frenchman Coulee, close to the Columbia River. The area is the desert part of Washington, and is famous for a enormous, dry canyon and large columns of basalt formations that rise on either side (kind of like the ones above and below).


I loved the fluorescent green lichen.

Apparently at one point, lava filled the area and cooled rapidly, cracking the igneous rock into these towers as it was being formed. A flood later in history carried away the topsoil down the Columbia River into Oregon (where all the wineries are now). This exposed the rockface.

We did some hiking along and through the rock columns, and some of my friends (including Kris) tried their hand at some rock climbing. You can see in the pictures that its just perfect for climbing--lots of convenient toeholds and handholds.

I didn't try this time--I've done it before and freaked out because of the height--but Kris and I might hit the gym some more this summer and give it another go.



Kris climbing up the rock. I cheered him on from below :)



We camped below one of the rock faces (you can barely make out our tent in the photo below). The sunsets (and the stars at night) were just gorgeous! The desert landscape was so different from Yosemite.


However....you'll never believe what company we had! The second night we were there, we discovered a rattlesnake, coiled up not 30 feet from where we had our tent. He was just a little guy. We had set up camp too close to some rocks, and Kris found what he thought looked like a rattlesnake den (a triangle shaped hole snugged between two big boulders).

Needless to say, we moved the tent, and checked it good before we got in at night. We imagined there were probably rattlesnakes all around--we just couldn't see them--but we read that the Western rattlesnake is pretty docile compared to the Eastern one, so we hoped it wouldn't seek us out.

I'm ready for May to be over--it seems like its nothing but run-ins with venomous creatures!