Palouse Falls

One of the amazing treasures found in the middle of the high dessert area of Washington is Palouse Falls.  It is an amazing beautiful sight in the middle of rock, tumbleweeds, and a lot of beige landscape.

What is maazing abou these falls is you can hear it well before you see it.  After parking in the designated parking lot, you either way down a winding path to the viewing area, or take a shorter route by walking down some steep stairs.  The water crashes down into a nearly perfect circular bowl, which is extremely difficult to access.

The power of the Falls was amazing.  With the spring melt filling the river, it is not wonder there is so much raw power falling from the sheer cliff.  In about 6 months, there won't be nearly this amount of water.

Surrounding the falls are craggy rock formations.  And depending on where the sun is located in the sky, the craggy formations can be either dark brown, beige, red, or an orangy color.  Did I mention the place is surrounded by beige?

The water falling form the falls flows down a river canyon that feeds into the Snake River.  The canyon is composed of sheer rock formations, rocky slopes caused by multiple rock slides, and bits of green grass that stays green for maybe a month before the hot temperatures turn the green to brown.

 

And living on the rocks, under the rocks, and in little rock houses are these guys.  Around the falls, the put on their "cute" faces in hopes the random visitor will feed them a Cheeto or carrot.  We had neither Cheeto nor carrot, so we opted for nothing.  However, this guy followed me up and down the viewing area - posing for my camera.  There were at least 20 people at the Falls when we were there, so I'm unsure why I was the lucky one chosen.  Perhaps I'm the marmot whisperer?  Whatever the case, I could swear I heard a whimper from this little fella when we turned to head back to the truck.