Ancient Lakes of the Columbia
I've always loved the landscape by the Gorge Amphitheatre, where I-90 crosses the Columbia River. Sweeping vistas with interesting geology and a bit of Rocky Mountain Front thrown into the mix. This past weekend, Paulo and I finally explored the area, escaping a very-rainy Seattle to a much-less-but-still-rainy Central Washington.
There's some state lands north of the Gorge about five miles, officially the Quincy Lakes Unit of the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area, part of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. We went backpacking in the Ancient Lakes part of the Quincy Lakes Unit.
I was obsessed with the landscape from the trailhead onwards. I still can't quite put into words what I love so much about the plains -- or plains-ish areas -- but I suspect it's related to spending so much time in Eastern Montana growing up. I love the patterns, depth, colors, and starkness of it all. I tried my best to capture it on my new (used) camera, a Fuji X-T1.
From the trailhead to our campsite was only about 2.5 miles, which was great considering it was raining and I wanted to spend time exploring the basin. We brought our fancy MSR Rendezvous 120 shelter with us to provide us some rain cover for cooking and hanging out (the big light blue thing in the bottom-left picture, to the right of the rock). It added three pounds to our packs, but the weight is worth it to have a dry place to hang out when it's raining. There were dozens of potential places to camp -- this area obviously gets lots of traffic in better weather -- and we chose the furthest spot between the last two lakes.
There are trails absolutely everywhere in here, and no signs at all. Some are quite established, and some seem to be more game trail than human trail. Given the interesting terrain and trails absolutely everywhere, I'd highly recommend a good map, or Topo Maps+ if you have an iPhone (it's spectacular!). Also, we did haul in our own water. We read elsewhere that the lakes are contaminated with agricultural pesticides from the farming in the area.
Overall, the Ancient Lakes are great. It's an easy hike in and there are so many places to explore. It would also be a great place to bring friends who are new to backpacking. I can't wait to come back in the spring when the whole place should be nice and green!
How to get there
Take I-90 to exit 149 (Quincy / Highway 281). There are two different trailheads. We used the west trailhead off of Road 9 and Ancient Lakes Road ("Ancient & Dusty Lake Trailhead" in Google Maps). There was lots of parking, and it was a level and easy hike in.
The other trailhead is on the east side of the area, which drops downhill into the basin. We didn't use this trailhead because it's gated in the fall/winter, requiring a mile walk on a dirt road before the trail. This seemed to be more of a hunter / angler trailhead. I avoided this trailhead because of the mile hike on the road (fall/winter) and steep drop down into the basin, which wouldn't be fun in the rain with heavy packs on.
