At the end of April we drove up the Lac du Bois Road to a trailhead into the middle grasslands.    the lower grasslands areas are open sagebrush areas, but as we climb higher into the hills, the sagebrush is less common and the slopes are mostly grasslands, with some shrubs and lots of pothole ponds.    There is a signed designated trailhead for a number of routes to hike.    They are single track grassy trails that get grown over in summer.    One of our favorite routes bears east to a viewpoint over Long Lake, then back to Island Lake, up the Grasslands Esker, then back on a faint single track, bearing south back to the trailhead.

The viewpoint offers views north to the end of Long Lake, east to the North Batchelor Ridge area, and south along the lake chain toward the valley.

We then traversed over to Island Lake, a pothole alkali lake, a good area to spot birds and wildlife.    There were killdeer, vespers sparrows, a hawk, various ducks, meadowlarks, blackbirds, and marsh wrens on the ponds.

We hiked up the Grasslands Esker (another good viewpoint) and watched a sandhill crane crane fly by.    There were a number of wildflowers out – shooting stars, pussytoes, larkspurs, vetches, desert parley, buttercups, western spring beauty, saskatoons in flower, lemonweed, cutleaf fleabane, woodland star, western saxifrage, and others ready to bloom soon.    We spotted ants at work and butterflies too.   Except for the calls of birds, all was quiet and peaceful in the middle grasslands.