Chamberlain Lake Overlook
Sunshine final found us yesterday afternoon. The motivation for this RV trip in the Columbia Gorge was to escape the rain in the Willamette Valley. The weather forecast supported that idea originally, but then the weather deteriorated to the point that rain was everywhere. We left Salem on Tuesday in the rain, traveling to Washuagal. We spent Wednesday traveling East in the Columbia Gorge in the rain. Thursday became dry, but cloudy until afternoon when the sun broke out while we were taking a break at the Chamberlain Lake Overlook.
We started this 3rd day of our Columbia Gorge Tour with a stop at Rowland Lake Rest Area. Not much was going on so we moved on to Catherine Creek where we hiked the 1 mile loop Universal Access Trail. Birds were scarce, but wildflowers are the main act here.
Balsam-root
Driving on our next stop was the Balfour-Klickitat Trailhead just before the town of Lyle. Here we had our best bird walk of the trip so far. Our most interesting bird here was this Lewis's Woodpecker. You can see our bird list here.
Lewis's Woodpecker
After lunch in Lyle, we backtracked to the Chamberlain Lake Overlook Rest Area (shown at the top of this post). It's possible to park for up to 8 hours here, and we considered staying, but after a nap and some down time we were a little bored so moved on to Horsethief Lake Campground. In the end we just could not see us staying there and paying 35 dollars to be uncomfortably close to neighbors. So, we moved across the river to The Dalles and our regular free parking spot at K-Mart.
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