Springtime in the Palouse
There’s nothing like the Palouse in springtime. Barns, granaries, fields of wheat, and rolling hills. These are a few of the things you can expect to see in the Palouse. And in the spring the hills are covered in green and there’s nothing else like it.
We had planned a few stops on our trip, as well as leaving some time to just explore. We’d been out to Palouse Falls the day before. Today was about exploring the farmland.
I love looking at farmland. As a girl our family would drive across the country to visit family in Colorado and Kansas, and I loved looking at the fields of crops from the window of the car. Last summer when visiting family in Ohio I got a good look at farms in Wayne and Holmes Counties. Washington State has some nice farm country too and today we were going to explore it.
We stopped at Kamiak Butte State Park. What a great park! Gorgeous views and lots of trees for shade. We’d been through Colfax, and Pullman stopping to eat and snack along the way. We saw lots of old rusty trucks and tractors parked here and there among the growing grain. We saw lots of barns and granaries. Some old. Some new.
And then we came to my favorite. Steptoe Butte.
Steptoe Butte offers 365° view of the rolling hills. On a clear day you can see for miles. We’d saved it for last for a reason. The hills photograph much better when the sun is lower in the sky near sunrise or sunset. It creates shadows that give the hills great definition that the camera can capture. In the middle of the day your eyes can see it, but the camera flattens the image, making it much less impressive. (As a photographer I’m amazed at how well our eyes are designed!)
It's helpful to have a zoom lens or binoculars here. There are some spectacular details and features that are great to zoom in on. It was fun finding the places we had seen up close earlier in the day. The more I looked the more I saw.
Eventually we decided it was time to head back. What a great day!
On to the next adventure!
NOTE: In 2025 there is some road repair scheduled on the road to Steptoe Butte due to a washout. Check the status of the road here before heading out.
https://parks.wa.gov/find-parks/state-parks/steptoe-butte-state-park-heritage-site
Kamiak Butte State Park is a good alternative to get some great views.