Two weeks ago (Memorial Day weekend) I spent a couple days in the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness. This weekend I went back with a friend and we did essentially the same route. The big difference, of course, was the wildlife. We apparently timed it perfectly for the bears foraging up high in the big meadows. The Indian Corral area has numerous ridgetop meadows that go on for miles. All the bears we saw were in these meadows above 5500 ft or so.
There's a full picture set if you're interested, and you can see my previous report for most of the scenery.
We got an early start Friday, leaving the Tri-Cities at 5:30. We were on the Panjab Trail by 8:00. We reached the Indian Corral area by 11:00. This signpost marks the junction where Panjab Trail, Rattlesnake Trail, and Mt Misery Trail meet. The meadow behind Scott here would be where we saw two of the bears, one each day we were up there.
Compared to Memorial Day the meadows were considerably yellower:
After setting up camp to drop some of our load, we headed south on the Mt Misery Trail to Oregon Butte. Shortly after leaving the big meadows and entering forest you get a nice long distance view to the lookout on the Butte.
I got a better shot of the big cornice up by the lookout this time:
On our trip back, as we were about to emerge from the forest into the meadow, I took it slow and quiet in case there were elk or other wildlife for the viewing. My wish came true as I peered through the final trees:
We eased out into the edge of the meadow and watch this guy/gal for five or ten minutes:
We finally eased away and across the meadow toward the main Indian Corral junction. Not more than 5 or 10 minutes later we saw an interesting speck about a half mile away, back behind that original trail sign:
The next morning we packed up and headed out toward the Rattlesnake Trail.
Just a few yards past the signpost, I saw this guy foraging over near the meadow's edge:
#3 ambled into the woods before I could get a very good shot of him, so we continued on, enjoying the many nice views the Rattlesnake Trail offers:
Shortly before Rattlesnake leaves the high meadows and hits the ridge bewteen the Panjab and Tucannon drainages, we flushed a few elk, one of which had a fairly impressive rack. They were gone before I could get my camera up, but we continued moving on high alert, just in case we caught another glimpse. Well, we got a glimpse, but not of the elk.
While we were preoccupied snapping shots of that one, for reasons I'll never understand, Scott looked away from our subject. "Whoa, look over there," I heard in an urgent whisper. The closest one yet was to our left and a little behind:
What an exhilarating dilemma! Which one do I point the camera at? We stood there in the middle of the meadow, right between these two locals, for several minutes, burning up memory chips and adrenaline. #5 was slowly ambling our direction, so we eventually yelled at him--didn't want him on our tail when we finally headed on down the trail.
What an incredible blessing!
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