"Alters and ticks and sunburns, oh my"
We decided to check out part of the Klickitat Rail Trail on Saturday. We stopped in Lyle for a few snacks at the mini-mart and then headed down the Centerville HWY to Harms RD. The TH is just about 0.5 miles down the road.
We headed west down the creek. There are a few gates along the trail to keep the cattle in, as this is an open range (at least the first mile or so).
The trail looses a few hundred feet of elevation as you head down. It goes along an old railroad bed that has long been dismantled.
It is still a little too early for the wildflowers, but im thinking in another few weeks, there will be more coming on. We only saw some Columbia desert parsley and one grass widow.
We hiked down to the 26-9 bridge and had some lunch.
After a short lunch, we continued on for another couple of miles. There was a nice small waterfall that was draining into the creek that we stopped at and splashed some water on our heads. The sun was intense feeling and it was about 70 out.
We went to about 4 miles and decided to turn around. We enjoyed the beautiful canyon views and the menagerie of wildlife that was around.
Here is a video I shot of a Western Meadow lark that spent a few minutes performing for us.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10 ... 6478654695
We got a kick out of watching the marmots play around in the rocks. We also saw a few lizards and garter snakes.
There was a lot of "trail art" along the way that we also looked forward to checking out. The first thing we came across was something that looked like it was straight out of the "True Detectives" series. That is a rattlesnake skin on the skull
There were also a lot of little sculptures that people have made out of railroad spikes.
On the way back, we stopped off at the waterfall to get our heads wet again. As we sat for a few minutes I noticed a spot on our dog that wasnt normally there...Low and behold it was a little Tick...drats! I forgot about that detail of this area... We did a tick check on him and found two more. We decided to wait until we got back to the car to do any more tick checking.
After we got back to the car I found one more tick on the dog. None on us so far...
On the drive home, my partner thought she felt a leaf in her hair... and then she realized it was a tick! Her instant reaction was to flick it
luckily it landed in the drink holder and she was able to grab it with some tissue and kill it.
We did thorough tick checks of the dog and us when we got home...just the 3 on the dog and the one on the human that was found in the car.
Showering up, I noticed I developed a nice farmers "tan" (tan to a ginger = burn)
Despite the ticks and sunburn, it was a beautiful day and a great hike. We will go back to check out other sections of the trail (next time prepared for ticks and sun)
For more photos of this trip, check out my blog:
http://cjsjaunts.blogspot.com/2014/03/k ... rd-th.html
