RIGHT: Canadian Pacific power leads a northbound manifest between Tunnel 12 and Tunnel 13 on April 26, 2013. The canyon walls turn green for a few weeks during the spring, although a massive range fire during the extremely dry summer of 2015 blackened all of this area, from the ridgetops to the river’s edge, removing all vegetation. It will be interesting to watch the landscape come back to life. BOTTOM: The weekly Palouse & Coulee City grain train rolls southbound between Tunnels 14 and 13 on September 23, 2011. These movements have trackage rights over the Ayer Sub between Hooper and Wallula.
vehicle. For everything else you have to lace up your boots and walk. The distances to the best photo sites are not intimidating, and the going is easy, but as soon as the developed part of the park is left behind, you will be alone, and you will remain alone until you return. It’s a refreshing change, however.
Most railfanning in the West is done on or near the shoulder of a highway, and the roar of cars and big rigs is your constant companion. At Palouse Falls there is silence. Oh, sure, once or twice a week a jet from the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station may come blasting low overhead, and depending on the wind direction there can be some river noise, but mostly it is very, very quiet, with a vast vault of sky overhead and only more sagebrush, and more basalt outcroppings, in the distance. At certain times of the year, you may be keeping company with a few grazing cows. This place looks much the way it has
since the end of the last Ice Age, which has a soothing effect on the frazzled 21st century psyche, and the time between trains will pass a lot more painlessly than you might suspect. Unless it it is hot. Temperatures in July and August can
be brutal, and at midday there is not a spec of shade. After an hour or so, you are putting yourself at risk. The only effective strategy is not to venture forth until about 5:00 p.m., and then return at dusk to the state park campground, where an overnight stay is highly recommended. There are just eight campsites, with no electricity or RV hookups, but there is no light pollution either, and the brilliance of the desert stars is incredible. Plus, there will probably be an extended coyote serenade, not to mention a few trains going by. Then you can get up at first light the next morning, when it’s cool enough for a fleece jacket, zipped all the way up, and as the orange glow behind the eastern rimrocks gradually intensifies, and the canyon depths begin to reveal themselves, the entire world will feel newly created. Several years ago a young daredevil from Montana — are there any old
48 NOVEMBER 2015 •
RAILFAN.COM
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