This trip was done by the Fun, Fit and Over Fifty Club of the Tri-Cities. The day was overcast but no rain or wind. This hike has been described well by others but I recommend using Bruce Bjornstad's On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods when doing this hike. He calls it the White Bluffs Rhythmites Trail and describes much of the geology you will see. It is accessed by taking Hwy 24 to milepost 63, heading south through the gate to the Wahluke unit of the Hanford Reach National Monument. Turn right towards the river at the first crossroad and park near the old White Bluffs ferry landing. The trail starts north from there and climbs up along some unstable bluffs. Along the way you see rock deposits from an Ice Age Floods iceberg - called erratics. Evidence of landslides that occurred in the 1970's are by Locke Island. And the slackwater rythmites are impressive. The H reactor (now mothballed) is in sight across the river on the Hanford site.

I led my January Winter Walk for the Cascadians today. I had been searching all week for a destination that might not have all the melting snow & mud that we have here in the Yakima area & when I read Mary C's post on the White Bluffs and saw that there was no snow, I thought that this might be the ticket. We walked the north bluffs and found the walking to be generally OK except for a few places where there was some clay in with the sand that made it pretty sticky. Though I have been here a number of times, I have never made it past the first large dune, but today we made it out to the second dune. There was a cool breeze blowing from the NE, but we found a nice sheltered shelf in the sand on the west side of the dune for lunch. After lunch we dropped down to the area below the bluffs & began making our way back. The terrain here is quite broken up, which made for interesting, but strenuous, walking. When we reached the area below the first dune we climbed the sand back to the top of the bluffs and walked the trail back to the car. The day was mostly cloudy, but mild enough that on the way back we were hiking in shirtsleeves - more like March than the middle of January. We saw lots of tracks in the sand, but no wildlife other than a few flocks of geese. The rain didn't arrive until we were back & loading up the car.

April 21, 2009: White Bluffs, Hanford Reach North Slopes: Ever since I took up photography as a hobby, I've wanted to have a crack at photographing sand dunes; they have always fascinated me as a subject. So, it was with great anticipation that I headed to Central Washington's Hanford Reach area. Along the banks of the Columbia River lie a stretch of sandstone bluffs, known appropriately as the White Bluffs; the northern section of these contain some beautiful dunes. In order to get to the dunes by sunrise, I left the house by 2:15am and was at the trailhead by 5:00am. It was still quite dark and I couldn't spot the faint trail, so I waited for 20min or so until it got bright enough to see. (I still didn't spot the trail, but headed north in the general direction of the bluffs to eventually pick it up.) The first mile or so was on nice green terrain, but then sandy sections began to appear and I lost the trail. No matter, the going was quite straight forward (just head north along the bluffs) and I made quick progress. Dawn had yet to break, but a serene pink glow had begun to suffuse the surroundings. Coyotes were in full cry, though they would remain out of sight. Birds were chirping, or honking, and everything seemed set for a gorgeous day. I reached the first of the 2 dunes in good order, just as dawn was breaking. The soft reds, glowing on the dunes and slight vegetation, were all that I could have asked for, and then some! I spent quite a bit of time at the first dune, knowing that the second dune was too far away to get to in time to enjoy the best of the light. Eventually, I headed over to the second dune, which was enormous. Here too, I spent quite a bit of time, wandering up and down the sandy slopes in every direction, before finally heading back. Cumulative stats: - Distance: ~6.5mi - Elevation gain: ~600ft - Hiking time: 4hr 10min South Slopes: The south section of the White Bluffs is separated from the north by a 5.5mi drive. It was 10:00am as I began my second hike. The day was bright, sunny and cloudless. The first mile was a road-walk - not very inspiring I must say. There were some interesting things to observe though: cool sandstone cliffs, and tumbleweeds, which choked every nook and cranny in the cliffs. The next section, as I left the road to head along an extremely faint trail (again I took off in the general direction before intersecting it), was marvelous. The route headed up into the hills and then along the bluffs through gorgeous terrain. The vegetation had hues of red and green, and this made the tumbleweeds stand out even more. Flowers began to make an appearance and led me to my turn around point at the edge of "The Great Valley": a beautiful wide, green valley, sided by bluffs and around a mile long. Cumulative stats: - Distance: ~5mi - Elevation gain: ~750ft - Hiking time: 1hr 40min Additional photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shahiddurrani/sets/72157617057556007

I’ve been jonesing for a visit to the White Bluffs at Hanford Reach on the Columbia. This is near Mattawa or Othello, depending on how you look at it. I found this place in the Nelson/Bauer “Best Desert Hikes” book and fell in love with it (both the book and the place). This was my 6th or 7th visit to White Bluffs. I am interested in the revegetation of the White Bluffs, after the 2007 lightning-caused total burn of 21,000 acres of sagebrush habitat. The road into the National Monument from the highway skirts the edge of the sand dunes, and some flowers are beginning to bloom; patches of sand dock are blooming, lots of yellow bell poking out of the sand are in full bloom, locoweed is blooming, and a mysterious yellow flower that HikerJim found. Beautiful cushions of pink phlox as well. These flowers are scattered – there’s not a sea of color here – but the dots of flowers here and there make it almost more special to find and enjoy them. I parked the truck and we got out and wandered around the sand a little, to find these flowers. At the end of the driveable road, I parked the truck at the parking lot/viewpoint. What we saw was that much of this area is still void of vegetation. We saw nothing but sand and circles with charred black dots in the center of them; each circle being the ghostly aura of an sagebrush that once grew there. We walked the abandoned road that heads south and down, down, down. The road is now choked with tumbleweeds. With nothing to check their flight, tumbleweeds race across the sageless land. These noxious balls of spines are taking over the folds & contours of the slopes. However, the tumbleweeds seem to give a place for the birds and small critters to live. Though non-native plants interfere with restoration, without these tumbleweeds, there would be no place for birds to flutter, and no place for small critters to hide from prey – we saw eagles and coyote and what we think must be badger dens - so predators are here again, which means there is prey – which means life. I don’t know what they’re planning to do about the tumbleweeds, but they (WDFW) have closed and likely will continue to close the area on occasion as restoration efforts continue. Further south, on the banks of the river near the abandoned and charred orchard, the some has returned. Tumble-mustard cloaks the slope above the Columbia River, it's brilliant yellow flower a gorgeous color against the green grasses that are coming back, and the aqua river. Desert parsley and biscuitroot are popping up as well. Saw some lupine beginning to poke up. I saw some shoots of tall sagebrush dotted here and there – it looks planted, but I can’t say for sure that it was planted; as far as I know nothing has been planted there yet, and there wasn’t a huge number of these shoots – but they are there. It got quite warm, and going further down the road meant coming back up in the heat of the day, so we decided to just head over to Gingko Petrified Forest and wander the slopes there. Some flowers are coming out, but the big show is a couple of weeks out. We also stopped at the Wild Horse wind power farm at Whiskey Dick. There’s a Visitor’s Center there now! Very nice – you drive to about the summit, and there’s a brand-spanking new building there complete with information boards, video of the installation of one of these windmills and interpretive displays. Very interesting – open 7 days a week 9 – 5:30. GO!