RHH's photos with the keyword: ancient lakes

Taken from the trail coming down from the south side mesa, this photo shows where the coulee opens up just above the Columbia River gorge (the distant hills are on the other side of the gorge and the river is down below). The distant mesa shows some of the striking geology of the area and the lakes are two of the three named "Ancient Lakes." We hiked around to the right, to the other end of the coulee and then along the distant mesa and out to the trailhead. I should add that the coulee is larger than it appears from the photo. It is over a mile from this point to the end of the mesa. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

One of the highlights of our hike in the Ancient Lakes area of eastern Washington was not even part of the hike. As we were leaving in the car a tom turkey and two hens came down the road toward us. Every so often the tom would start strutting his stuff, but the hens seemed more interested in foraging and paid him so little attention that he finally gave up and went running past the car and further down the road. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

For reasons unknown to me the area we hiked is known as the Scablands and the photo shows some of the geology of the area. The mesas which separate the coulees from one another are full of these columns which I assume are basalt and of volcanic origin. This picture was taken as we hiked up from Dusty Lake across the mesa to Ancient Lakes. We had to scramble up the loose rock in the foreground and across the sloped area at the base of the columnar formations and through the notch in the distance. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Having hiked to Dusty Lake and over the mesa to Ancient Lakes, we had our lunch near this waterfall that dropped from the mesa down to one of the three lakes known as Ancient Lakes. It was only later after we had hiked quite a distance that we realized there was another part to the falls up above and a steep path leading to it. That, I guess, will have to wait for another occasion. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

As we began hiking some of the coulees at Ancient Lakes early in the morning the sky above was laced with the contrails of many jets traveling to or from the airports in Seattle and Spokane. Photography was a bit of a challenge since the early light made for deep shadows on the mesa and a lot of contrast between the sky and the ground. This was the best of the shots I was able to take. The photo shows only the top of the mesa and the columnar basalt formations that make up so much of the geology of the region. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

One of the wildflowers we had hoped to see on our first hike of the spring, and did see, was Fritillaria pudica, or Yellow Bells. It is one of our earliest wildflowers and we had missed it in previous years for that reason and because it grows in eastern Washington, but not on our side of the state. We found a few of them at Ancient Lakes and then found them again in Reecer Creek Canyon northwest of Ellensburg, Washington. It is supposed to grow up to a foot tall, but those we saw were only a few inches. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

To the best of my knowledge this is the Few-flowered Shooting Star, Dodecatheon pulchellum, another early spring wildflower that is quite common in our area, but always a joy to find. These were photographed in a sheltered area on the north side of the mesa above Dusty Lake. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Near Ancient Lakes my wife spotted this Mourning Cloak butterfly laying eggs on a willow twig (actually, I am not sure it was a willow twig because I was so excited about seeing the butterfly that I never noticed what the plant was). She was so involved in her business that we had plenty of time for pictures. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Photographed on the mesa at Ancient Lakes, the Upland Larkspur, Delphinium nuttallianum was just beginning to bloom in some sunny areas. I believe I have the identification correct, but if not I hope someone will correct me. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

On our recent hike we found a few plants of this wildflower, one we had not seen before. Known as Woolly-pod Locoweed, Woolly-pod Milkvetch or Pursh's Woolly-pod, Astragalus purshii grows only in the dry Juniper and Sagebrush areas. It is a low-growing, mat-forming plant with small flowers. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

This is the lower part of the same falls I posted earlier. For some reason the scale is not very good, since this part of the falls was itself fifteen to twenty feet high. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Another photo of this unusual mat-forming species. We found only a few plants new Dusty Lake when hiking there and were pleased to find it since it is one we hadn't seen before. The photo was taken by my wife. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Everything is early here this year. Many of the wildflowers are blooming several weeks ahead of their usual blooming times and these are no exception. These were photographed at Ancient Lakes but I found them blooming in Washington Park near Anacortes earlier this week. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Another photo taken by my wife and showing some of the unusual rock formations in the Ancient Lakes area. A geologist would be able to explain these better than I and perhaps even give a name to this type of formation, but even to our untrained eyes this is clearly volcanic in origin. The photo was taken near the top of one of the mesas that separate the coulees from each other. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Photograph near the trailhead at Ancient Lakes. This is my wife's photo which is far better than any I tool. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

Actually I'm not sure that this is what they call an erratic, but it sounded good. This huge rock was standing alone in the middle of the coulee. The photo was taken by my wife near the end of our hike. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...

This is one of the three lakes known as Ancient Lakes. They are at the back of a coulee in the Quincy Wildlife Recreation area, a coulee that we were hiking when this picture was taken. We had hiked most of the way around the lake at this point, having scrambled over the loose rocks on the far side and stopped at a waterfall hidden in the corner. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2013/04/ancient-lak...