QUOTE
Deduct Wonders
Trail to Deduct Springs filled with plethora of wildlife, scenery and greetings with fellow hikers
DON DAVIS - OUTDOORS
Click to view attachment
U-B photo by DON DAVIS
Nora the Schnauzer scans the Walla Walla Watershed from Indian Ridge.
The massive rock on the hillside loomed larger than a house, at least 40-feet high on one side and about twice that wide.
It even looked like a house, of sorts.
It stood about 50 yards up the slope, and I’d walked by without seeing it on the way down the South Fork Walla Walla River Trail (No. 3225) from Deduct Spring.
That made me wonder what else I’d missed: Deer, elk, bear, sasquatch?
At Deduct Springs, after all, Paul Freeman, once a Walla Walla watershed patrolman, made a video tape of a sasquatch in August of 1992.
The video even appeared on the old television show, Hard Copy, in October of 1992.
I’ve heard that Freeman also saw two other sasquatches at Deduct Spring, an adult and a juvenile.
Well, Nora the Schnauzer had moseyed ahead slowly down the trail, and I kept a wary eye on the woods, just in case.
Nora, of course, kept a busy sniffer going along the way.
She paused to nose-poke at something every few feet. I paused to snap photos of flowers, mushrooms, the small beginnings of the Walla Walla River.
I continually peered into the woods for movement.
We also paused briefly with Brian Wolcott, his wife, two children and a guest from Cairo, Egypt, who is an exchange student at Wa-Hi.
We’d met at the trailhead, and Nora and I left before they did.
Since we dawdled along, however, they soon passed us. We met them again when they stopped for a brief picnic beside the small stream.
We talked briefly, and in yet another small-world moment, I learned that Wolcott is the executive director of the Walla Walla Watershed Committee.
And once helped survey the South Fork Walla for redds (egg beds). The survey discovered dozens of redds, mostly laid by bull trout and some by rainbow trout.
I forgot to ask if he ever saw a sasquatch, but I’m sure he would have mentioned it if he had.
Or maybe not?
Anyway, the trail from Deduct Spring follows the South Fork Walla Walla River drainage for 20 miles, to near Harris Park, 13 miles from Milton-Freewater.
Longer ago than I can pinpoint, I rode my bike from home, up the Tiger Canyon hill, down to Harris Park and back home through Milton-Freewater.
Another time I rode from Deduct Spring to Harris Park and back to Walla Walla with a U-B colleague.
The first ride took all day, because of the five-hour-plus ride up Tiger Canyon. The second one took about six hours.
On the recent drive up Tiger Canyon, I stopped near the top and walked half-a-mile along Indian Ridge and back, with the rough-hewn road on one side and the Walla Walla Watershed wilderness on the other.
Freeman also saw a sasquatch from the ridge, and I looked carefully for movement.
When we reached Deduct Spring, Nora and I planned to walk downhill for about 90 minutes before turning back.
We spent a few minutes visiting with the Wolcott family before continuing downhill.
With the temperature in the low 50s beneath a clear sky, we had a perfect day.
Intense woods, with mammoth fir trees draped with long, stringy moss, stood on both sides of the trail, giving it a haunted aura.
Without a breeze to rustle the evergreens, only the soft murmuring sounds of the tiny Walla Walla River broke the silence.
Well, that and my footsteps that often stumbled when I paid more attention to the deep, dark woods than to where I stepped.
For a while, the trail followed along high above the river (or brook).
Then, I stumbled down a long decline and across a wide flat. When I checked the time on the camera, we’d been on the trial for two hours.
I opened the daypack, dug out a PowerBar and a snack for Nora.
I sat on a deadfall for 10 minutes or so and chased the energy bar with ice-water from the CamelBak water bag.
I figured it would take about two hours to get back to the trailhead if we didn’t dawdle for photos and to sniff everything within nose range.
But we dawdled.
And sniffed.
We saw mushrooms we’d missed.
We met two camouflaged archers from the Portland area.
And we saw the house-sized rock up the slope.
After that, we walked even slower and observed the woods more closely.
We still didn’t see a deer, an elk or a sasquatch.
Next time, perhaps.
Contact Don Davis at dondavis@wwub.com or 526-8326.
Trail to Deduct Springs filled with plethora of wildlife, scenery and greetings with fellow hikers
DON DAVIS - OUTDOORS
Click to view attachment
U-B photo by DON DAVIS
Nora the Schnauzer scans the Walla Walla Watershed from Indian Ridge.
The massive rock on the hillside loomed larger than a house, at least 40-feet high on one side and about twice that wide.
It even looked like a house, of sorts.
It stood about 50 yards up the slope, and I’d walked by without seeing it on the way down the South Fork Walla Walla River Trail (No. 3225) from Deduct Spring.
That made me wonder what else I’d missed: Deer, elk, bear, sasquatch?
At Deduct Springs, after all, Paul Freeman, once a Walla Walla watershed patrolman, made a video tape of a sasquatch in August of 1992.
The video even appeared on the old television show, Hard Copy, in October of 1992.
I’ve heard that Freeman also saw two other sasquatches at Deduct Spring, an adult and a juvenile.
Well, Nora the Schnauzer had moseyed ahead slowly down the trail, and I kept a wary eye on the woods, just in case.
Nora, of course, kept a busy sniffer going along the way.
She paused to nose-poke at something every few feet. I paused to snap photos of flowers, mushrooms, the small beginnings of the Walla Walla River.
I continually peered into the woods for movement.
We also paused briefly with Brian Wolcott, his wife, two children and a guest from Cairo, Egypt, who is an exchange student at Wa-Hi.
We’d met at the trailhead, and Nora and I left before they did.
Since we dawdled along, however, they soon passed us. We met them again when they stopped for a brief picnic beside the small stream.
We talked briefly, and in yet another small-world moment, I learned that Wolcott is the executive director of the Walla Walla Watershed Committee.
And once helped survey the South Fork Walla for redds (egg beds). The survey discovered dozens of redds, mostly laid by bull trout and some by rainbow trout.
I forgot to ask if he ever saw a sasquatch, but I’m sure he would have mentioned it if he had.
Or maybe not?
Anyway, the trail from Deduct Spring follows the South Fork Walla Walla River drainage for 20 miles, to near Harris Park, 13 miles from Milton-Freewater.
Longer ago than I can pinpoint, I rode my bike from home, up the Tiger Canyon hill, down to Harris Park and back home through Milton-Freewater.
Another time I rode from Deduct Spring to Harris Park and back to Walla Walla with a U-B colleague.
The first ride took all day, because of the five-hour-plus ride up Tiger Canyon. The second one took about six hours.
On the recent drive up Tiger Canyon, I stopped near the top and walked half-a-mile along Indian Ridge and back, with the rough-hewn road on one side and the Walla Walla Watershed wilderness on the other.
Freeman also saw a sasquatch from the ridge, and I looked carefully for movement.
When we reached Deduct Spring, Nora and I planned to walk downhill for about 90 minutes before turning back.
We spent a few minutes visiting with the Wolcott family before continuing downhill.
With the temperature in the low 50s beneath a clear sky, we had a perfect day.
Intense woods, with mammoth fir trees draped with long, stringy moss, stood on both sides of the trail, giving it a haunted aura.
Without a breeze to rustle the evergreens, only the soft murmuring sounds of the tiny Walla Walla River broke the silence.
Well, that and my footsteps that often stumbled when I paid more attention to the deep, dark woods than to where I stepped.
For a while, the trail followed along high above the river (or brook).
Then, I stumbled down a long decline and across a wide flat. When I checked the time on the camera, we’d been on the trial for two hours.
I opened the daypack, dug out a PowerBar and a snack for Nora.
I sat on a deadfall for 10 minutes or so and chased the energy bar with ice-water from the CamelBak water bag.
I figured it would take about two hours to get back to the trailhead if we didn’t dawdle for photos and to sniff everything within nose range.
But we dawdled.
And sniffed.
We saw mushrooms we’d missed.
We met two camouflaged archers from the Portland area.
And we saw the house-sized rock up the slope.
After that, we walked even slower and observed the woods more closely.
We still didn’t see a deer, an elk or a sasquatch.
Next time, perhaps.
Contact Don Davis at dondavis@wwub.com or 526-8326.
