I went hiking last Saturday to the end of the earth and back. For those who remember the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy", the bushman goes on a long journey to throw the evil Coke bottle off the end of the earth, a big cliff overlooking an expansive valley. Just a couple minutes off the freeway in the middle of Washington is Frenchman Coulee, an amazing place carved out of the basalt by the ice age floods (one of my favorite topics, just ask my kids!). An easy hike takes you up on a basalt rib between two expansive coulees. The rib rises 300 feet above the coulee floor, much of it in sheer basalt columns. A little less than a mile hike takes you to the end of the rib, where you look out over an expansive vista, nearly 360 degrees, from the south alcove of the coulee, down and up the Columbia river, and around to the north alcove, a view rivaling the end of the earth from the movie.
A trip in late April/early May is rewarded by an amazing profusion of wildflowers, my favorite of all being the bitterroot, which pops up seemingly out of bare rock with a delicate beauty that I think is hard to match in any other flower. This is one of my new favorite places!
