Bennington Lake Trail

My brother, Ian, told us he calls it a reservoir, even though it’s officially called a lake. He was prepared to be stubborn about it. This time of year, I could see why he would not name it Bennington Lake, because the water level was extremely low, exposing the drastically changed water level that is characteristic of a reservoir. Still, for a January hike it was beautiful in a wintry way.

Ian and Karen have only lived in Walla Walla for a couple of months, so they know nothing other than winter here. It’s a bit exciting then, that the world will only wake up and become brighter and more colourful around them. They have a tradition that they try very hard to stick to, which is a Sunday walk. This region does not have as many nearby trails as their last home, so they are grateful to have Bennington Lake very nearby. There are lots of trails around the lake, which allows them to make the walk longer or shorter as needed.

In the photo above, you can see the snow level on the mountains. On January 8, when we did this walk, Ian took note of the snow level which had not yet reached the valley floor. He was bracing himself. Though Ian and I grew up in Idaho, which has long and brutal winters with deep snow for months and temperatures that stay below zero for weeks, both of us now have spent more than a decade on the Pacific Coast where winters are milder. (Two days later, snow reached the valley floors in Walla Walla)

Pedro and I had spent much of the previous day in the car driving over there, so we were grateful to spend an hour and half circling the reservoir on the trails. In the winter, one has to look a little harder to find the greens, reds, yellows, and browns that light up the landscape. But they are there, and we all found it to be a beautiful walk.

Ian encouraged me to scramble down to the beach and stalk this crane. He and Pedro waited for me up on the trail.

Ian kept spotting more birds for me. It was a dark day with a dull sky and my camera had a hard time with light. Forgive the fuzziness that results when I use my photo editing software to brighten up the shots.

The trail that curves closely along the bank of the water was extremely muddy. My brother told me that they had walked the trail only the day before, and it was fine. This was because the ground was frozen. While we were there, it was above the melting point, and we were increasingly challenged as we walked. As soon as we had the opportunity, Ian had us cut across to a gravel road that is still part of the park.

The road took us back to the parking lot across the top of the dam that creates the reservoir. It was ferociously windy and we tucked our heads down and bullied through it. Thus, I have no more photos until one last goodbye photo.

As you can see in the image above, the clouds had lowered and it had begun to rain an icy rain. We only got a little wet before we reached the car. We considered ourselves fortunate.

After Karen got off work, we then walked the streets of downtown Walla Walla, which did not have many people on this cold, dark, wet winter evening, but shops along the street were brightly lit with outdoor patio lights and lots of Christmas lights still up. Some places can really use electric help when it’s totally dark by 5 pm. The lights made things feel festive. We walked into one of the only restaurants open (it’s a tourist town and a weeknight in January does not have enough customers to keep all places open), called Hattaway’s. Their specialty is gourmet food from the Southern United States. Oh my heavens it was divine. We were enjoying tasting each others’ orders so much, that we quickly just asked for each dish to be brought to the center of the table to make it easier for us to dig our utensils into everything. We moaned in happy ecstasy as we tried citrus pork balsas, deviled eggs, charred broccolini, roast beef tri-tip, roasted tomato spaetzle, shrimp fried rice, grilled pork coppa, and chicken cassoulet. We shared a bottle of local cabernet. Walla Walla is wine country, and cabernet is their specialty, unlike Oregon, where the shining star is pinot noir.

All that food warmed us up nicely.