Climb Every Mountain

 This is a Chukar:  

It's a type of partridge, about a foot tall, which has resident populations here.  This is not my photo, however, because I never see the darned things.  I hear them (they have a distinctive call), but they refuse to show themselves to me.  I find this most vexing.

This is Candy Mountain.  It's 1,315 feet tall.  One day last week I hiked up to the top because someone reported seeing Chukars near the summit on a regular basis.  It was such a hopeful report that I simply had to go.

There's a well-maintained trail, 1.7 miles of low-grade switchbacks (one way), with occasional handy flat boulders for mature hikers to rest upon, which I did.

There are lovely views --sweeping vistas of the Tri-Cities, and of Badger Mountain next door.  I had already hiked the confusing trails on Badger in search of Chukar, because they are regularly reported there, too.  I have tried that at least five times.  Have I seen them there?  No, I have not.

And did I see them anywhere on Candy Mountain?  Of course not.  I didn't even hear one of the danged birds.

This is the summit.  It was very, very quiet.  During the hour and twenty minutes or so that I hiked up and down I saw and heard a grand total of two Horned Larks, neither of which deigned to stop anywhere long enough for better views or photos.  

So the Chukar continues to elude me.  On the plus side, it was a simple trail, with lots of nice interpretative signage, on a lovely Spring day, and I got in some decent exercise.  Still.  How much climbing do I need to do around here, and how often, before I get to see a Chukar?  

I'm up to six attempts now, and two different mountains.  It does tend to get a trifle repetitive after a while.

And also, there are rattlesnakes living on these things.  Though luckily, actual encounters between hikers and snakes are few and far between.  I carry a walking staff to fend them off even so.  Well, okay, the walking staff is really to help me get up the dumb hill.  But you never know!

When not bemoaning the lack of Chukars, I was busy painting stuff, as usual.  Here is an English country garden in watercolor, with an excess of flowers, because hey, why not?  This is what I'd like my garden to look like someday.

For our sketch group Zoom sessions, we did this old pile of books, for which I used colored pencils:

And we did this run-down water tower, which I rendered in sepia ink and watercolor:

The Hounds got taken on walks, naturally.  We went to a part of the Columbia River Trail near the marina, where I spotted these inviting chairs:

And where the Hounds were able to cool off in the water:

It's quite a lovely area:

We also checked out a new group called Tri-City Wiener Walkers, who met at a park in Kennewick for a stroll with their dachshunds. It was a wildly windy day, and only around eight people turned up, but we had fun meeting them.  

They plan to try again next week, hopefully with better weather.  Pippin and Truman were the only longhaired wieners there, and were much admired.  

So that was my week.  This coming week I hope to hear from the landscape designers who are supposed to give bids on my garden plan.  That should be exciting.  In a good way, I hope.

Have a great week, everyone!