Umtanum Creek Canyon — Friday, May. 11, 2001

Central Washington > Yakima

Went again to Umtanum Canyon, this time on a backpack. It's a great early season hike, good place to try out your gear without expending a huge amount of energy. We hiked in about 3 miles, set up camp, had lunch and went on a dayhike. The ""trail"" in the canyon is actually more ""trails"", beaten by boots, winding back and forth across the creek, from one side of the canyon to the other. The trail has a few washouts and the casual trail has been rerouted around brush. It could stand a major overhaul, but the difficulty keeps the people down. As we hiked further up the canyon, it became difficult to follow the main route in some places, but we always seemed to get back on track. We actually made it almost to the powerline before time ran out and we had to turn back. We saw numerous snakes and lizards, including racers, bull snakes and RATTLERS, big and small. The baby rattlers are out and being immature, they don't get out of your way. We stared down one cute little guy who was so small we couldn't hear his rattles. Warning! The flowers have advanced a bit. The serviceberry is beginning to set fruit, as are the apple orchards. I saw a tree with beautiful clusters of white blooms which might be a wild hawthorne. Will have to do some research when I have time. We did spot a couple of sheep (goats') lots of various sized hawks and raptors, and lots of smaller birds. Some naturalist groups from Kittitas were conducting nature walks on Saturday, so the parking lot was full. This is a nice area and it was great to escape the gloom of the Puget Sound. It was hot on Saturday and more moderate on Sunday. Pretty soon it will be too hot in the canyon for anybody but rattlers and heatlovers.