Beebe Springs Wildlife Area

I wanted to get out for a relatively easy hike with my puppy, as he seemed tired from doggy day care the day before (and we did a decent hike in the Chelan Gorge the day before that), so I decided to head down to Beebe Springs while my Discover Pass was still valid. I was curious to see if there were any wildflowers popping, and while there were a little, it wasn't nearly as much as I had seen in the Chelan Gorge.

It had been quite awhile since I had hiked in this part of the Beebe Springs Wildlife Area (I have hiked the upper section a couple of times recently), and I decided to head down the Discovery Loop trail, as last time we had walked around the LaChappelle and Grasslands trails. The Discovery Loop trail is a nice wide gravel path and easy going.

Start of the hike

I saw what I thought at first was an arrowleaf balsamroot at the start of the trail, but it looked a little different. I now believe it is actually Carey's balsamroot instead. Surprisingly, I did not see another Carey's balsamroot nor an arrowleaf balsamroot on the rest of the hike.

Carey's balsamroot

I continued along the trail, and let my puppy Summit do his usual sniffing. Fairly quickly we came to the junction with the North Spur Trail where there was a worker in a truck spraying water on a small burn area. I saw some other recent burn areas further along in the hike; I'm guessing there was some invasive species they wanted to eradicate and burned the area? Anyways, I continued along the North Spur Trail and eventually found a short side trail down to the riverbank, where my dog could drink some water.

Columbia River

golden currant

I came back on the North Spur trail and continued along the Discovery Loop, finding some Oregon grape along the way that was just starting to flower. I wasn't expecting the flowers to be yellow, so I didn't know what I was looking at until after the hike.

Oregon grape

Eventually I reached the end of the loop back near the parking lot. Checking my watch, I realized I hadn't even reached a mile, so I decided to continue onto the LaChappelle trail. The last time we had been here, a section of this trail was flooded and closed, however that was not the case today. Most of the trail is gravel, however there was a short section of dirt through a marshy area, which was part of the area closed last time.

There were a couple of streams draining into the Columbia, with a bridge over one of the larger streams. There was quite a bit of water pooled up on the side of the trail, and I could see something decently sized moving through the water. It was hard to make out what it was, but I'm pretty sure it was a fish. Given the shallow depths, I wasn't expecting to see a fish, especially one of that size.

Bridge on the LaChappelle Trail

Eventually I got onto the Grasslands trail, and made my way back to the car. I was hoping for some more wildflowers on the walk, but it was still nice to get out and get some exercise.