Photos from this trip can be found here.
We get a ton of rain around this time of the year, and yet every year it seems like we’re getting more and more of it due to the lack of sunshine. Another trip out to chase the sun in Central/Eastern Washington! This was the pups and my fourth time visiting the coulee. To make things a little more interesting, this time I decided to walk around Echo Basin instead. All the other times our trip would consist of walking over to the waterfall at east end of the north basin.
Parked the car at west end of Sunshine Wall just off Old Vantage Highway, and then we proceeded to hike southerly toward southwest end of the basin. I was surprised to see how sandy this part of the coulee was the farther south we hiked, gotta love the geology of our state! A sandy gully draping down from edge of the cliffs allowed us access to top of the coulee. Once at the top, we traversed counterclockwise around the cliff bands and made occasional stops for photos.
East end of the basin where a stream flowed down into the basin was a perfect spot to break while enjoying sunny views to the west. After an hour we continued our hike, went past the trail leading down to the Feathers climbing area, and then got above cliffs on the north side of the basin. The sun had just set while we were atop the Sunshine Wall climbing area, with plenty of daylight to scramble back down west end of the coulee to conclude the loop of our trip.
Access: Old Vantage Highway (1.5 miles west of The Feather parking)
Gear: none