Juniper Dunes Wilderness — Saturday, Mar. 11, 2017

Central Washington > Tri-Cities

This was my third overnight trip to Juniper Dunes, and my first spring visit (my other trips were December & January, as this is a great winter backpack destination, too). This year's spring is late in coming, but there were pretty little yellow wildflowers out (they looked like little yellow daisies) and hundreds of blue birds. I'm hoping I have the opportunity to come back again in late April or early May in order to see the dunes in full bloom. We started from near the second kiosk in the OHV area and started off on a mix of OHV trails and cross country for the wilderness fence a little over a mile away. Once inside the fence, we set off for the middle of a dense section of juniper forest (my hike companion had looked up a likely area using Google Earth and saved the GPS coordinates for the approximate spot). It started to rain on the hike in, and really started pouring just in time for me to set up my new tent for the first time (yep, everything got a bit wet...I had practiced set-up once ahead of the trip, but I didn't quite have it down yet). All part of the adventure! After a little mid-day tent time the rain stopped and we spent the afternoon wandering. Hiking in Juniper Dunes is a very different experience from other hikes. There are no trails here, so we'd just pick some interesting thing off in the distance and hike to it, and then pick again. All-told we got in over 9.5 miles of wandering on Saturday. On Sunday we did a short morning wander before packing up tents and heading for somewhere off on the northwest end of the wilderness. The sad part of the weekend was seeing A LOT of illegal OHV tracks inside the wilderness area. There's a huge OHV area outside the wilderness, but apparently some unethical folks can't respect the boundary for the non-motorized area, and they are tearing up the wilderness. We wanted to see if we could figure out where they are gaining access, and we think we found the spot, or at least one spot, where 4-wheelers and dirt bikes are getting in. I've already reported it to BLM. It makes me so sad to see the damage--tire tracks tearing up vegetation, crashing over sagebrush, and leaving damage that will take years to heal in this desert landscape. I hope more hikers will come and use this incredible area responsibly! If you come, the OHV area is the only access point for anyone who plans to stay overnight (free permits for overnight use available from the BLM Spokane website--just print the page, send off the half for the office, and keep the bottom portion of the permit for your hike). When we came out we saw there were hikers who owned jeeps who made it all the way to the Wilderness Gate to start their hike. I managed it last year (January) in my Subaru, but the sand seemed too dry & soft for my car this year. For a dayhike, use the driving directions found in Day Hiking Eastern Washington, hike #103. This access point on Joy Road is available for day use only. It's a very cool experience, but hikers need to be prepared with map/compass and GPS for route finding. There's no water, so carry all you'll need for your visit.