It has occurred to me lately that my weight is moving in the wrong direction. I've been told in the past that your body will get too accustomed to the same routine, day in and day out, so a change is needed.
I talked to a nice lady yesterday at the local microbrewery (Mmm, do you suppose the brewery has anything to do with my sudden weight gain?:-)) about a trail in Kettle Falls along the Columbia River. This lady, in her 70's had just finished the "Bloomsday" 7 1/2 mile run on Sunday in Spokane, so I figured she would be a good source for local trails.
Found the start of the trail near the Kettle Falls campground, less than 10 miles from my house.
A nicely packed and clean trail.
There are some similarities to the Rotary Trail in Colville, with the main exception being...I never saw another soul the whole morning. I did see my very first coyote (in the area) dart across the trail in front of me, way too quickly for me to get a photo. I hear them occasionally at home, but they are in the valley, fall below the house.
I did cross three beautiful wooden trail bridges that span lagoons. (when the lake is full)
It might be fun kayaking in these lagoons once the lake fills to the top, around July 4th.
This large sandy flat will also soon be underwater.
Further evidence of the lakes waves that...when full, are undercutting this pine tree.
The comeplete town of Kettle Falls was moved to higher ground before Grand Coulee was completed in 1942. After the lake filled, the old town of Kettle Falls would have been under 30 feet of water. The famous "Kettle Falls", where local Indians caught salmon, was submerged under 90 feet of lake water.
The government built living quarters for 1300 men who were responsible for clear cutting all the trees, soon to be under water, and any other structure that had to be moved.
All that remains of the many buildings that housed the workers are a few of these concrete slabs. The workers town was erected and demolished...all within three years.
I had to hike up a small side trail just to see the lake.
When Roosevelt is full, it has 9.6 million acre-feet of water in storage at flood stage...and a yearly outflow average of 99 million acre-feet for the Columbia River. You could drain, and then fill the 151-mile long lake, more than 8 times in one year.
As a comparison, Lake Mead has a much larger capacity for storage, 29 million acre-feet of water, but with a total yearly outflow for the Colorado River with only 16 million acre-feet of water, it would need two years to fill itself...just once.
It's always nice to come across a rancher who takes pride in trimming his trees, from the ground up.
Just kidding, the deer are doing all the work...:-)
Besides the lovely walk through the forest, were hundreds of these lilac bushes. (at least I think it's lilac)
What a way to finish off the morning walk. I won't even venture a guess on the name of this beautiful carpet. I even felt a stab of remorse by going out amongst them for the photograph.
Until next time....
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