Like I mentioned in the previous post, we really enjoyed Spokane. The parks and trails were almost some of the best we have experienced. The only things lacking were trail blazes and maps. It was pretty difficult to navigate on unknown trails without good blazes or maps.
Wednesday evening we realized that we didn't have as many steps on our Fitbits as we would like so we found a small town near the base that had a park with caches. It was a short ride to Medical Lake. There was a path along the west side of the east lake. The west lake didn't have any caches. It turns out the east side was not a good place to look, either. The mosquitoes were out and bugging us something awful. So much for getting some caches, but we did get some steps!
Thursday we drove to Rim Rock Road and Palisades Park. The park overlooks the city. Bob knew we would find some geocaches in the park so that is what we did. It was a good thing we were geocaching as the trails were not blazed well. Every so often we would see the red blaze for the trail we were hiking, but more often than not, when there was a fork in the trail, there was not a blaze to be seen. We used the GPS to help us find the caches and navigate the park.
The trails were not much wider than animal paths, but we knew they were well traveled people trails. Every now and then we passed other hikers.
I have to say the view of Spokane from Rim Rock Road was spectacular! Who knew the woods was so close to the city!
Thursday we wanted to hike in Riverside State Park to an area called Pitcher and Bowl. We could find it on the city map, but I couldn't find any maps on-line of the trail. We drove to the park, west of Spokane, and began looking for the trailhead---no, there were no maps, not even on the kiosk at the parking area. We could see the pedestrian bridge over the rapids, but we had no idea how to get down to it!
We finally saw a runner and asked him how to get to Bowl and Pitcher. He gave us good directions and off we went. At first we thought we had gone too far for the turn-off, but we passed to ladies walking and they told us it was just around the next corner. Of course, we had to stop and find a geocache once we knew which trail to follow.
It was a great hike, but once again, even after we were on the trail, there were no blazes to mark the way. We enjoyed the scenery and even saw a few brave souls kayaking the rapids.
Finally, we made it to the pedestrian bridge over the river. As we were leaving and getting ready to retrace our steps, we saw the ladies who had assisted us---they were coming from the opposite direction! They were happy we made it to the bowl and pitcher. They then explained that there was a loop trail that would take us back to the parking area. They said that locals knew the trails and the only maps were in the ranger's office on the north east side of the river---opposite of where we started. There wasn't even a sign to let you know about the ranger's office at the trailhead. Oh, well.....
We made it back to the car and back to the RV. We had a great time in Spokane and look forward to visiting again. Saturday was moving day. Time to get closer to western Washington to meet our friends, Larry and Connie, for the Great Alaska Adventure!
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