A Look Around the Countryside

For those of you who might not be familiar with Washington State and where we are located, here is a quick look at our current home in Oroville, Washington, which is the point highlighted in yellow. Seattle is in the lower left, Spokane is in the lower right, Vancouver, BC is in the upper left and the solid line across the upper part of the map is the border with Canada.

For this blog post we will take a tour around some of this beautiful country. There are lots of lakes and mountains here. It is a really neat place and so far we have not seen all that many people. That more than likely will change as the summer progresses.

Here is a map of our route. You can see the Canadian border towards the top of the map. We are almost in Canada and Verizon,our cell service provider, thinks we are in Canada and wants to charge us a bunch of money for roaming out of the states. We have not gone into Canada, so we needed to discuss the geographical limitations of our travels and the economics associated with that travel with Verizon. Hopefully they won’t charge us extra, we shall see. But I digress.

Though the route is a circuitous one; we will concentrate our comments on the south west portion, the Sinlahekin Valley and wildlife area. Though we did not start in Loomis it is at the northern end of the Sinlahekin and this sign is found there. Loomis is a small town one general store and several homes and lots of cattle. It is a beautiful area about 16 miles west of Tonasket.

Before we got out of Loomis we saw this entry gate to the Spear Ranch. We thought it was a wonderfully well done gate.

OK we are on the road that heads basically north south down the valley. Our southern terminus is Fish Lake but there are many lakes and sites to see between here and there.

There is a headquarters complex for the management of the Sinlahekin. It is operated by the State Of Washington for the benefit of all. This sign is just off the road before you get to their buildings.

This lush green meadow is at the start of the Sinlahekin. The terrain was a mixture of sparse pine trees, meadows, high mountains, and lakes.

One of the lakes we encountered, and we won’t bore you with them all, is Forde Lake. The sign basically says the lake was formed in 1949 to promote fishing and irrigation and has been used extensively for fly fishing. There was a great variety of waterfowl on the lake including ruddy ducks and wood ducks among other species.

This a broader view of Forde Lake. It did not appear to be very deep and had a lot of reeds and brush around the edges, great habitat for waterfowl.

Here we have a view of the sides of the valley. The road follows along the valley floor and is accentuated on each side by these high rocky cliffs.

We stopped and looked north along the road. Shortly after you leave Loomis it turns to gravel as you see here. It was in good condition and not full of washboard. We are guessing it will get a lot of use in the summer months.

This is the south end of Blue Lake one of the larger lakes along the route. There were people camping at many of the lakes in what would be considered primitive campgrounds. They had numerous pit toilets along the way but limited other facilities. If you camp here, you need to have everything with you. Blue Lake was a beautiful Lake as were most of the others.

This shows the north end of Fish Lake. It parallels the road being restricted in width by the ridges of rock on each side. Blue Lake was of a similar configuration and geographical constriction.

We are looking south down Fish Lake. You can see the road that heads up and out of the valley in the left side of this image. Just as you get to about the middle of Fish Lake the road changes from gravel to pavement and is paved out to the highway.

We stopped at the bend in the road and looked further south. The Sinlahekin continues on but the road takes us away from the great scenery and wonderful lakes.

We didn’t want to bore you with a bunch of bird images but felt the need to include one. This is an Eastern Kingbird. We have seen a lot of this species in our brief travels around here.

Here is an image I almost forgot, must be getting old. It is of Deanna delivering a scoop of ice cream in a cup, one for each of us. It was from the only store in Loomis and quite tasty. The scenery is beautiful but we must have some sustenance.

We must apologize for the lack of sunshine and brightness in these images it was an overcast day and the colors did not show as well is these photos as they should have.

We hope you enjoyed this brief look at the Sinlahekin Valley and the lakes and the scenery that are there. We don’t think the images do the place much justice as it is far more magnificent than these few pictures and our meager words can convey. You need to put this place on your bucket list or whichever list you have of places to visit and get up here.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments. All the best – George & Deanna