Discovered an early Spring gem in Yakima last weekend...beautiful weather and lot of wildflowers (with more to come).

My friend Fran and I took advantage of the sunny day in Yakima and went to Cowiche Canyon. No matter what season of the year I visit this place, I find it full of colors and contrast. Today the Upland trails were filled with blankets of violets, yellow bells, grass widows, and parsleys. Mixed in with these flowers were smaller batches of phlox, praire stars, buttercups, cinquefoil, balsamroot and more. In the lower canyon the trees, grasses and bushes showed various lively colors of red, green, beige, gray and white. The rock formations are just fascinating to me. A couple of turkey vultures were spotted in the cliffs and just above them were nesting habitats of what I believe belong to cliff swallows. Also spotted were hawks, a horned lark and Western meadowlarks. The number of birds were few.

I wish the trails were better marked. Lots of junctions were nameless and some trails have names that are not shown on a general map posted in a few locations. We missed a critical point in our loop route and ended up having to walk "off the beaten path" to the Summitview trailhead. 

Not many people in the canyon (bikers share these trails) but I'm sure this place is busy on the weekends. It was a nice change from hiking in the snow to walking on sunny lands with flowers and canyon views.

I hiked the South Rim of Cowiche Canyon and then 2 miles west on the William O Douglas trail into the Rocky Top area (and then down various mountain bike trails). All of the trails are in great shape, there is no mud anywhere. Between the grass widows and the sagebrush violets peaking, there is lots of purple (pictures 1 and 4). Some of the grass widows are starting to fade producing lots of different shades and hues, it's very pretty (picture 1). There are lots of species of biscuit-roots blooming, mostly white, some green and yellow. There is 1 purple/red Columbia desert-parsley blooming on the south rim, and multiple areas with many of them blooming at Rocky Top. There are some sagebrush buttercups, and lots of gold stars and yellow bells. Some of the yellow bells are fading to oranges and reds (picture 3). I saw a few red/purple fragile onions (picture 2). Except in the areas with thick, tall grass, there are flowers ever step of the way, delightful. 

I wasn't happy with the way I connected Cowiche and Rocky Top. When I find a good way, I'll post the route. I used the Uplands trailhead at Cowiche; a nice lot, with a clean port-o-privy, equipped with TP. I saw only a few people, with the 20 MPH wind and the ability to distance, nobody felt the need to mask. I had a fun conversation with a man in a colorful hat his daughter had knit for him. My studying kind of paid off, I was able to incorrectly tell him that the flower he was curious about was the Wenatchee desert-parsley. He was disappointed that it wasn't named after Yakima. He would have liked it more if I had accurately told him it was Columbia desert parsley.    

What a great day to look for flowers. We started at the west trailhead and headed up the Lone Pine trail after the second bridge. There was a little mud as we worked our way to the top but it’s hardly worth mentioning. We found a bench up top for some lunch, then took the South Rim Trail where the flowers really started to pop. I don’t know all their names, but I do know there were tons of Yellow Bells, purple and white flowers too. 
We came to The Drop Trail and that’s exactly what it did. Dropped us straight down to the 7th bridge. We looped back from here. Singing birds, hawks, red twigs and cool rocks all the way back. 

My first purples of the year! Lots of grass widows, a few sagebrush violets, and 2 Columbia desert parsley! There were other colors too, tons of white desert parsley, a few bulbous woodland stars, yellow bells everywhere, some gold stars on the South Rim Trail, some sagebrush buttercups, and other small and harder to identify flowers. The grass widows were thickest on the East Uplands Trail (I also hiked the South Rim Trail to the west end of the canyon).

There were just a few, short muddy spots, otherwise the conditions are great. I saw 15  people or so on this partly sunny Wednesday. I only saw 2 masks, but you can always get plenty of distance. 

The attached caltopo route is 7 miles one way. It's a sometimes hard-to-follow bootpath on the west end that takes you through an old junkyard and then veering right, down to the canyon. The South Rim Trail is very well signed and highly recommended, rolling hills, views of the canyon, and a large variety of flowers.