White Bluffs - South Slope, White Bluffs - North — Saturday, Apr. 11, 2009

Central Washington > Tri-Cities

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!