COULEES AND CANYONS
April 30th: Today is windy with a chill early. Crossing over the Kettle Falls Bridge onto the Sherman Pass Scenic Byway Hwy 20, but not long before heading south on Inchelium Kettle Falls Rd, to Inchelium, west on Bridge Creek Rd Hwy 2, over the San Poil, south on hwy 21 to the Manilla Creek Road, west and into Grand Coulee on 155. Then onto Banks Lake via Barker Canyon. The pine forests melt away into a harsher dry desert with sage and crumbling cliffs of basalt. This area seems so alien and bewildering with random grotesque shaped rocks that are appropriately called erratics. The lake shore is clay and sand and piles of odd shaped clay pieces line the shore like scales. The wires of Grand Coulee seem to add this sense of alien with hundreds of high tension lines supported by power poles that are reminiscent of “transformers“. Tonight sleep in the sounds of coyote and owl.
May 1st: Agenda destination Moses Coulee and Jameson lake which means back into Grand Coulee. The Grand Coulee Dam Visitor Center at the foot of the dam an enthusiastic host educates on the variance in water levels including the disturbing story of the avoidable flooding of Vanport.
On the plateau between the Grand Coulee and Moses Coulee there is an old abandoned school house. The 360 degree view is total isolation of other buildings. The school seems to have escaped from the stark basalt walls and, between the coulees, crawled to a stop.
Coulee City is at the west end of Banks Lake. I drive through collecting more images that seem to have a theme consistent with the school house abandoned on the higher plateau.
I see a snake stretched out and crossing the dirt road that drops back into Barker Canyon but am unable to avoid it in time. I park, grab the camera and walk back. The serpent is still alive and easily identified as a viper even though it is not showing or rattling at first. As the camera is produced the snake recoils itself and now is giving out a warning. I give it plenty of space, capture some images and we part our ways.
