I have been doing a lot of planning for my upcoming scouting trip next week to Oregon with Jeff Clow, as well as for a Palouse Photo Tour in May that I am co-hosting with him. These two locations are very much on my mind, so I will be posting images from my past trips there this week.
If one word can describe the Palouse, it is undulating. Other than Steptoe Butte and Kamiak Butte, there is no significant part of the Palouse with any altitude. Instead of just being flat land, the landscape rolls up and down, creating little pockets of light and shadow. They are much more pronounced when the sun is lower in the sky. When the sun is high, the whole landscape is lit and the undulations appear less undulating.
When Jeff and I scouted there last August, the color of the landscape was golden, as the harvest was underway. Some areas had golden wheat swaying in the wind, while others were devoid of wheat as they had already been harvested. It is in the spring when the landscape changes to all shades of green, as you can see from this photo that I took during my first visit there.