For the Love of Dirt

All photos by Ken Etzel

If you get your nose close enough, ponderosa pine bark smells like vanilla. Or butterscotch, depending on the tree.

Washington is famous for its pine trees. It’s portrayed as a land of constant water and ever-present green, which, in mountain biking terms, translates to a land of perfect trails and perfect dirt in perfect forests. And that’s true … or at least for the state’s West Side.

Spokane, on the far eastern edge of the state, is not famous for its pines or perfect mountain biking. It’s famous for apple trees and college basketball. Like much of the state’s eastern two-thirds, it’s a half-dozen inches of annual precip away from a desert. The forests are sparse and scattered, the hillsides a mix of sunbaked dirt, crunchy grass and a patchwork of scratchy shrubs. The terrain is craggy rather than steep, where it’s not expansive, horizon-wide farmland more akin to the Midwest. The trails are dustier, more likely sand than loam, and speckled with fist-sized pine cones.

That austerity is why some Western Washingtonians consider it the “boring side” of the state; for East Siders, the modest palette just highlights the subtle details. On the East Side, you can see the landscape’s bones.

Lime and yellow and orange patches of lichen announce the rare island of granite, which, in turn, hints at the story of two apocalyptic floods: the first, a roiling wave of fire and lava, left behind the area’s iconic hexagonal basalt columns; the second, a wall of ice and water, carved that basalt into deep gorges and scattered the leftovers across hundreds of miles.

And, when the still-damp soil meets the full brunt of Eastern Washington sunshine, there is no better place to ride a bike. For a few weeks each spring, those bones are covered in a riot of color that’s both delicate and dramatic. The streams surge with snowmelt, shimmering ribbons of liquid life in a still-slumbering desert.

Waves of grass sheath the hillsides like green lace, spotted with yellow and purple polka dots of balsamroot and lupine. The spice of sage and fir blend with the vanilla-butterscotch of ponderosa, an intoxicating concoction that embodies spring.

The landscape’s frugality only serves to highlight the nuances of each, distilling the experience rather than obscuring or diluting it behind a wall of green. Glimpses of other trails through the ponderosa are just visible enough to pique curiosity. Maybe the next lap you’ll find where they go. Or the lap after that.

What you draw isn’t the point. The point is drawing itself.