After setting up camp at Big Pines CG, we had time for a short walk so drove to the Selah Cliffs Natural Area Preserve which we first visited on 5-26-13. The following link describes the area and our first hike:

http://www.wta.org/[…]/trip_report.2013-05-27.4715549088

Today we saw basalt daisies on the basalt walls along the Yakima Canyon Road just before the turn for the preserve. Flowers were few at the preserve, but we did see one blazing star, purple sage, and a beautiful white flowering shrub which we have not yet identified. This is any easy walk to view the basalt daisies and to hopefully observe birds and other wildlife. Today we saw a coyote, a quail resting on a tree limb and red-tailed hawks.

We hiked about 2 miles north on Selah Butte exploring in many directions. We had lunch on some rocks just before you begin losing elevation if you continue on. The day was cloudy so there were no mountain views. The early flowers are way past their prime. The best flowers are after you pass the fence. The stars of the show were the hundreds of bitterroot blooming and those "yet to bloom"! A few thyme-leaved buckwheat, phacelia, Hooker's onion, Oregon sunshine, small flowered penstemon, death camas and many bitterroot were blooming. Bob saw a small rattlesnake under a rock with only a small portion of its tail showing. As we neared the TH on our return, we talked to a couple returning to their car. They had hiked only to the fence. They had driven the road in a small passenger car so this is possible, but one would have to be very observant and careful as the road has ruts and rocks along the way.

After setting up camp at Big Pines CG in the Yakima canyon, we drove to the Selah Cliffs Natural Area Preserve which is a 107 acre area that supports the largest known population of the Basalt Daisy in the world. I read on their website that the cliffs above Selah Creek and the Yakima River are the only places the basalt daisy has been found. To reach the TH drive south on the Yakima Canyon Road which is HWY 821 and turn left onto Selah Creek Road as if you were going to the TH for Selah Butte. Instead of bearing left as you would for Selah Butte, bear right to a small parking area and a sign for the preserve. There are interpretive signs along the gravel trail. One is supposed to stay on the trail so bring binoculars and a long camera lens to see and photograph the daisies which grow high up in the cracks of the cliffs. We walked to the I-82 bridge. Purple sage, globemallow, basalt daisies, and beautiful grasses were seen. There are 2 concrete picnic tales and 3 concrete benches along the way. We saw a Lazuli Bunting, several Cedar Waxwings, and several varieties of butterflies. A Discovery Pass is needed and dogs are not allowed.

I combined this trip with Cowiche Canyon for a long day. I should probably have done them in reverse order, visiting Selah Butte in the morning to increase chances of avoiding the winds that likely increase in the afternoon. It was partly cloudy, which made for occasional interesting light draping itself across the hills, and dropped the temperature quite a bit.

The road to Selah, as per other trip reports, is pretty gnarly. The gravel washboard isn't bad compared to the couple miles of rutted, rocky, undulating nastiness that follows. Not recommended for low-clearance vehicles. You can park by the lower gate and avoid most of it, walking up the road past flowers and horned larks and such, but I had the big truck and so drove to the upper "parking area", a wheel-rutted garden of Hookers balsamroot. A very nice man and his son were going to target shoot (it's BLM land, so don't grouse) but decided to drop down to practice so I didn't get that Beirut feeling as I was returning over the ridge.

While this hike gets advertised for its flowers, it is the grand views of prehistoric landforms that I found really magnificent. Walking along the edge of the ridge (there are no trails, really) gives sweeping views of the massive uplift at the south end of the Yakima Canyon. Big oxbows in the river canyon tell of the force of floods for tens of thousands of years, probably. If you stand still long enough, the land appears to flow before your eyes and you start to see the swirl of big water in your mind's eye.

Of course, there is the mark of man here: the barbed wire you crawl through that keeps the cows on one side and the lupine blooming on the other, the dam on the Yakima far below, the canyon road with trucks and cars. But the land overwhelms and makes us look really, really small here.

I walked north as recommended by "Desert Hikes", but in order to stay close to the river, I dropped down a game trail through a gully and sidehilled a slope to the viewpoint. You have options here depending on your comfort level and shoes (some ankle support recommended for slopes- I had good traction, but was in approach shoes with low ankles and wished for my day hikers).

A splash of bright pink caught my eye on the ridge and I found a hedgehog cactus beginning to bloom. Just one, though there are small cacti throughout. I alarmed a pair of swallows near a rock outcropping where they may have been nesting, and they buzzed me with surprising force, swooping in tight angry circles and creating amazing wind rush for such teeny birds. Since no one was there, I could do my St. Francis bit and assure them aloud I wasn't a nest-maurading raven as I scurried away over the rocks.

On the drive back through Yakima Canyon, I saw bighorn sheep leaping along the western cliff face in the usual place (there is a wide shoulder and a couple pullouts in the northbound lane, right as you enter the canyon- look left across the river). Stopped to see these phenomenal athletes with their ballet moves on the type of rocky terrain I had been stumbling on not too long before. Yakima Canyon is lovely now with its brief cloak of green, and especially in the late afternoon light- fishermen on the river, rafters in the campgrounds having dinner, and all is good with the world.