Klickitat Rail Trail - Klickitat River

The first signs of Spring have arrived at the Klickitat Rail Trail. We found some early-blooming flowers and trees, sunshine and scenic river vistas.

Meeting at the Lyle trailhead, we decided to drive up SR 142 to the trailhead at the community of Pitt to start our hike. From Pitt, we hiked south towards Lyle on an in-and-out route for a total of about 7.25 miles.

This section of trail is within the Klickitat River's Wild and Scenic River corridor.

The trail is well-signed and milepost markers now show your distance from Lyle. Some trees have fallen across the trail this winter, but they can be navigated. It is important to stay on the the trail since at some places the right-of-way is only 30 feet wide from the center line.

For the first mile south from Pitt, the trail passes a handful of houses before becoming more wild and getting closer to the river. Oregon White Oak and Ponderosa Pine trees line the trail. We found early flowers on open slopes and rock outcrops, including Grass Widow, Scale Pod, Salt-&-Pepper Desert Parsley, Columbia Desert Parsley, Pungent Desert Parsley, Northwestern Saxifrage and Gold Stars.

We got a look at a rare Western Gray Squirrel and we saw several Mule Deer on the ridges above the Klickitat River. We saw several Bald Eagles, a Golden Eagle, Red-tailed Hawks, a Cooper's Hawk, Lewis' Woodpeckers, Common Mergansers, Canada Geese, Dippers and other birds.