SWAKANE WILDLIFE AREA, WENATCHEE, WA :: Swakane Canyon is just five miles north of Wenatchee. A scenic trail twists up the canyon's northern slopes via a federal forest road, NFD 5215. The road seems to go on forever through the mountains, and I'm sure there are many other adventures beyond my turnaround point. Today, I followed it about five and a half miles to a saddle at 3800'. It was a very gradual and steady climb all the way to the top, gaining 2400' from the trailhead. Likewise, the slope was very easy on my recently nagging knees on the way back down. (
Google map of the road/trail.)
There are nice views all along the trail, looking over Wenatchee and the Columbia River Gorge. The predominately brown desert hills were lightly veiled by a grassy green tint and occasionally speckled by blooms of yellow balsamroot and purple lupine. The skies were mostly sunny and blue, until a bank of large cumulus clouds rolled in. Their shadows cast an interesting patchwork of light across the rolling landscape, adding another layer of texture and depth to an otherwise flat scene during the high noon light.
About halfway up the trail, there's a picturesque rock wall extending across the crest of a bare hill, topped by a lone tree. It appears to be man-made... Perhaps it is a remnant a mythical hill-people that once defended themselves against the evil river-people down in the canyon. Unfortunately, science once again sucks the whimsy out of such notions... Geologically, it's just an exposed sheet of magmatic rock that somehow crept into a crack in the ancient landscape and weathered away at a slower rate than the surrounding sedimentary layers...
But I'm sure it was a gnome that planted the tree.
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