Spring has sprung and we're finally getting out hiking! The air quality was poor but the wildflowers were outstanding. This hike is famous for it's population of Lewis Woodpeckers, not mentioned in any of the websites we checked out when choosing this hike. Poor excuse for not bringing our bird camera. Dang, they were beautiful but our shots were not. Note to selves: always always bring the BIRD CAMERA!!!

Our early spring was spent on a flurry of projects on the home front. After prepping the vegetable garden, having our old circular driveway torn out and new asphalt laid, and a wonderful new stone retaining wall for our side yard installed completely by Mark, our itch to hike has grown for months.

The Crawford Oaks Trail is an easy to moderate hike and was a good starter hike to launch our 2022 hiking season. Our distance was 7.01 miles and just under 1000' of elevation gain. Views of the mighty Columbia River were typically gorge impressive. The skies above offered an array of fluffy white clouds and mouth watering shades of blue. And the wildflowers were in fine spring form! The only less-than-perfect aspect of the hike was poor air quality. Even shooting in RAW format was not enough to denoise many of the shots.

BUT nevertheless the hike was a wonderful kickoff to hike season 2022. We may just try this hike again next year - WITH our bird camera!