Cactus Country At Beezley Hills Preserve
The Hedgehog Cactus on the nature trail north of Quincy will get your attention, if it doesn’t get your toes. The smallish cacti are less than a foot in height and easy to miss on the three-mile path. One false step in a pair of tennis shoes could easily ruin your day.
The hilly, shrub-steppe landscape on Beezley Hills has more to see than cacti. Known for its wildflowers, the short, pleasant hike through a quiet nature preserve offers wide views of the Columbia Basin.
With three inches of snow forecast for Stevens Pass over the weekend, last Thursday’s trip to Beezley Hills was part of the waiting game to get into the high country. There’s still too much snow in the mountains to get deep into the mountains without crampons or snowshoes. The trip came about a month too late, however. Most of the flowers, including the smallish cacti, had already bloomed and blossomed. Most of the sulphur lupine and balsamroot have retired for the year, but there is still plenty of sweet-smelling sage, thymeleaf and rock buckwheat and fuchsia flowers to look at.
The trail itself is an old double-track jeep road. It’s barely distinguishable in places, but impossible to get lost since you can see for miles and miles. It starts at a 2,900-foot elevation and heads down a ridge before petering out about halfway down the hillside. There’s no boundary sign or fence at the bottom, so you could conceivably walk into downtown Quincy, seven miles to the southwest.
Hiking boots would have come in handy. The ground is covered in prickly foliage and basalt rocks.
For someone accustomed to hiking in the forest, Beezley Hills is a dramatic change of pace. It’s a little intimidating being in such a vast area. Good thing it was a cool day on Thursday because there isn’t a tree — or water — for miles.
The area is protected and owned by the Nature Conservancy. The upper path is blocked from the access road by a fence with an opening at the trailhead near a communications tower.
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Monday, June 9th, 2008
