October, 2025
I will be showing you the Columbia River, and I will be showing you Beacon Rock (after which this state park is named), but first I’m going to show you a lake that is very near the campground and right next to the Columbia River, because that’s where I went the first morning that I was here. One of my neighbor campers told me how pretty the area around the lake was and told me about some birds that were there.
It’s Lake Shahala, in the image below. As I have traveled along the Columbia River, in my camping trips and other journeys, I’ve been surprised to find so many lakes right next to this huge river. Besides being surprised, I’m really liking the explorations and the learning.
So, the RED dot in the image below is where I’m camped.
I tried driving into the Lake Shahala area on the road on the east end of the lake, but when I got to the RED arrow in the image below, the sign said “bridge closed”. So I turned the truck around and drove past the very small town of Skamania, then went to the west end of the lake to drive in, where the YELLOW arrow is. There are some lovely homes here! It’s a private homeowner community, though it was not gated. They own Shahala Park and, technically, I didn’t have permission to be there, but I waved at everyone I saw and smiled, and everyone did the same back to me.
When I arrived at Shahala Park, there were two women walking with about five little kids, maybe 5 years to 9 years old. Those little kids LOVED my truck. The women initially tried to get the kids to stay away, but, again, I smiled. And when I saw that the kids were hanging around the back bumper, I went there and sat down on the ground and encouraged them to touch and explore the big white truck. One of them noticed the exhaust pipes so I explained that’s where all the hot air comes out of the engine when it’s running … and if the engine was running right now, you wouldn’t want to be back here NO! you wouldn’t want to be breathing that hot air, no sirreee, it would HURT! The kids laughed and jumped, and the women thanked me for being kind and for gently, in a fun way, warning them.
And then I walked down into Shahala Park.
Nobody was there. It was so pretty and peaceful.
The woods and the mountain in the distance were so wonderful.
I walked down close to the edge of lake to find that there wasn’t really very much “lake” there this time of year. This summer (2025) was hotter and drier than usual, so I wasn’t surprised there wasn’t very much water here. And, it was past the time of salmon or trout migrations, so the low water right now wouldn’t hurt them. But I wondered what birds I was supposed to see. There were crows about, and lots of Canada Geese, LOTS of them. 🙂
I walked back into the middle of Shahala Park, then approached the “lake” at that point. It was very pretty. Hmmm, looks like there are some white birds out there, better get closer.
Yes, White Cranes! There are all manner of cranes in North America, some of which live in or pass through the State of Washington. In my experience, these White Cranes are one of the most common cranes here. I love them. They are pure white.
The photo below shows the bridge that was closed to vehicle traffic, the bridge at the east end of this community. I walked towards the bridge and then could see that some of the pilings, the supports, were rotting, so I was glad they had closed that bridge … I didn’t need to take my big white truck for a swim. The birds, however, didn’t really care about the rotting bridge supports, they just wanted a bit of fishy lunch.
With the water level this low, the birds had a great time fishing for tiny fish and other bits of food. It was obviously paying off. I counted more than 40 White Cranes here.
I didn’t want to get too close, didn’t want to bother them, so I used the zoom lens to get these photos.
Just a couple of seconds before I snapped the photo below, that one crane with the long neck was standing in the same position as the one that is hunkered down, the one that seems to have no neck. But that one in the background seemed to have an itch that it needed to scratch so it “unfolded” and scratched that itch. I wonder how such a long neck can be folded up so tightly that the bird seems to have no neck at all.
And then there were these two cranes below. Obviously on a mission to find a bite of lunch.
The word “shahala” is from the Shahala Tribe of people who lived here, way before we immigrants arrived. The word “shahala” was coined by the Lewis & Clark expedition. Those native people actually called themselves Katlagakla. Maybe spoken very quickly those two words … Shahala and Katlagakla … might sound similar, although they don’t to me. So much for Lewis & Clark!
I love learning about our planet, even just my own little corner of it … the geography, the geology, the rivers, the climate, the people, the plants … and the birds. Those White Cranes were beautiful!