Northrup Canyon is by far my favorite hike in Central Washington, and my favorite hike from November - April. It's one of our rites of spring. We watched the weather carefully, and chose to go out last Saturday, when the temps were in the 50's. Being a weekend, we weren't expecting solitude, which you can find here on weekdays if you have the option. We met up with another 5 groups (including one group of horseback riders) - that still wasn't enough to make it feel crowded to us.

The trailhead is about a 1:45 drive from Spokane. It's accessed from the road along Banks Lake, well-marked (at least from the north), just a mile or so north (and on the east rather than west) of the Steamboat Rock part of the State Park. Oh, as a state park, there's a $5 parking fee.

For those of you who haven't been here, Northrup Canyon is an ""alpine oasis"" in the desert. The nearby Steamboat Rock hike is okay, but you'll be lucky to see a tree. Northrup Canyon is lush with Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs. Currently, the only flowers were scattered buttercups, but most shrubs were budding out, so it will probably be another month before the prime blooming season.

As for the hike, you start out on a road (now blocked at the trailhead) back to an old homestead 1.7 miles back. This part is fairly flat, and the lower spots were muddy or covered with water. There generally was a dry path to tread somewhere on the side of the road, though. The creek through the lower canyon was flowing faster and deeper than either of the two of us had ever seen, forming pretty cascades near the wooden bridge a little more than a mile in, where you cross the creek. If you choose to do this hike before the water seeps/flows/evaporates away and the roadbed still is filled with water, look for a large (6 foot high) basalt boulder to the left just past the bridge, and you'll find an older, rocky (okay as long as you don't have bad ankles) road in the basalt talus that will let you walk to the homestead without going in water up to your knees (word is that a horse found a soft spot on the road on Saturday, and went down to it's belly - at least three feet). For a nice view up the lower valley, scramble 50 feet up the granite boulder pile just preceding the bridge (the reason the old road has to go from the east side of the creek to the west).

For me, the reason to go on this hike at this time of year is the rest of the trip, from the homestead up. From this point, it's a single-track trail that climbs about 400 feet vertical along a granite spine (the bedrock in the area before the basalts). I missed this trail the first time in - it's left and uphill (look for signs on one of the buildings). The trail meanders along a well-designed path through granite boulders and notches, in open pine forest for much of the way, with the occasional vista. After about a mile, you come to a steep section, and end up on the top of the granite ridge. A little further, and you start dropping down on the other (east) side of the ridge. Currently, there's a frozen pond up here (never before when we've been up) that marks this point, which I'll come back to. For now, you follow the trail past the pond, and down to Northrup Lake, which has a really nice lunch spot on some rocks near the shore as the trail skirts the southern side. The lake is currently 3/4 frozen. We've always stopped here, but the trail continues around the lake and up the east side of the canyon and out to the top. Total distance to the lake is about 3.2 miles.

From here, the wandering can continue in one of two ways. You can backtrack to the ridge where you crossed over to the east (currently where the small pond is first seen), and then follow a faint trail (faint only because there's no obvious preferred route for a moment) north along the ridge until the trail becomes obvious. Eventually (oh, about 0.3 miles), you get to a nice outcrop with a view (and another great lunch spot) into the west canyon extention, and its lake (the map shows it as seasonal, but it seems as nice as Northrup Lake to me). You can also reach this point by going crosscountry from Northrup Lake to the obvious saddle where the grassy hill meets the basalt talus from the cliffs - at this point, a trail appears that takes you through a pretty meadow to the view spot outcrop.

From this outcrop, the trail descends a short distance into the west canyon, and goes through pretty thick (certainly for central Washington) forest to get to the ephemeral (according to the maps) lake. There's a nice grassy spot for a get-together right when you get to the lake. The trail continues along the east side of the lake, but this appears to be seldom used, so it's pretty brushy. There's another nice picnic spot halfway along the lakeshore. We continued past the lake, and followed the route (not quite a trail anymore) to its conclusion at the end of both the last sub-canyons. It's about 0.5 miles to the lake, and another 0.5 miles to the end of the canyon.

The trip visiting all these places was about 9 miles round trip. The total elevation gain was 500 feet from trailhead to ridgetop, and 100 feet back up after visiting the west lake. It looks like climbing out of the canyon would add another 100 feet vertical.

There are times when you are walking the trail (after the homestead) that you can almost convince yourself you are hiking in summer at altitude. I hope the pictures convey the feeling that this isn't just a place to get exercise in the winter months, but a place to really reenergize your soul and remind it what's coming as the high country melts out.