At the start we share rugged narrow valleys with the rivers that sculpt then, first the Okanagan then the Columbia.  Towns hug the river banks and orchards splash up the valley hillsides on amazingly steep slopes owing their existence to the ever present irrigation.  Gray-brown slopes reach to the valley tops above the reach of sprinklers.

The valleys open up and grazing land is interspersed with orchards. Ever wider orchards all but disappear as wheat the hayfields stretch out across the valley now some 100 miles from mountain range to mountain range.  Snowcapped Rainier, St Helens, Hood, Adams, Jefferson and more peek at us along the horizon through a thin veil of smoke from scattered grass fires.  They don’t irrigate on this plateau and weeks without rain have left it, a fire waiting to happen.

Down, down from the high plateau. We are in a piedmont-like area now.  Rolling hills and lots more trees.  It’s rocky too as we near the area of ancient volcanic activity here in the middle of the state.  That is our destination for today, Newberry National Volcanic Monument.