Got a little turned around with the driving directions. Thanks previous trip reporters for the heads up on the break ins at the lower trailhead. I ended up there, but drove to the trailhead off Weikel Road. Weather was overcast but about 60ish. Maybe 6 or 7 cars in the parking lot. No pass required. Have to walk by a couple of houses to get to the trailhead. Trail is nicely maintained. Very little elevation gain if you stay on the Cowiche Creek Trail. Elevation gain on the side trails. Did not take any of those today. Saw maybe 6 other hikers/trail runners. And one lost mountain biker 🙂. Water in the creek is running pretty fast, liked all the little bridges that have to be crossed. Would do again, but earlier in the day if going in the summertime.

Yet another escape to amazing sunny weather! I did this hike last year, so it was time to return. It's a perfect day when you can combine hiking and wine tasting! Three of us drove from Seattle and arrived at the trailhead around 9:30AM. It's good to get there early, because the trail was way more crowded later in the day. Follow the wta directions to the parking on Weikel Road. The other parking lot is known for lots of break-ins. This is an easy flat hike unless you go up side trails. We hiked from the Weikel Road parking lot to the other parking lot. On our return we took the wine trail up to the winery, and had some great wine tasting! There are beautiful views from that trail. The winery hours are posted on a sign at the beginning. This is really a cool trail. There are cool basalt cliffs, interesting rock formations, and wildflowers! Some other hikers said they saw a marmot, but unfortunately we missed that. We did see a bull snake though. Bonus points if you can find the man in the rock! The most interesting part of this hike was when we saw a man jogging with a mule! He had a cattle dog with him. After chatting with this man and his mule, we continued the hike. We then ran into a distraught lady who had lost her cattle dog. It turned out her lost dog was the same dog that was with the man and the mule. We guided her to the side trail that the mule man took. We saw lost dog lady later on, and we were happy that she reunited with her dog! We hiked a total of 7.3 miles, with 672 elevation gain.

We began our hike at the Weikel Road TH and hiked to the aspen grove where we turned around. We had a light rain most of the day except during our lunch by the beautiful rocks just after bypassing the washed out bridge. The rain stopped and we had sunshine! ( Actually we had lunch because of the sunbreak! :)!) Only birds seen were two turkey vultures and a red-tailed hawk soaring above the hawk's nest! A marmot was seen near Bridge # 5. Flowers were blooming and the shrubs were leafing out. Fern-leaf desert parsley, prairie stars, sickle pod rockcress, buttercups, yellow bells, arrow-leaf balsamroot, death camas, and fiddle neck were some of the flowers seen.

My friend & I decided to leave rainy Seattle for the day & head over to Yakima. We did have a bit of trouble finding the trail head due to conflicting map programs. We finally did make it to the one listed in the description on WTA off of Weikel road. It was a beautiful day in the high 50s. Wind was not a concern on the hike but was a bit concerning on the drive home. The trail is in great condition with just s small section of rock slide noted on the WTA page. It's easy to maneuver around. Not muddy anywhere. We didn't have time for the wine detour & will save that for another day. We are glad we went this time of year. In the summer with no shade it would be pretty brutal if you are hiking with a black dog like I have!

We began our hike at the Cowiche Canyon Uplands Scenic TH. The day was mostly sunny with some clouds and a strong cold wind which made taking flower photos difficult. The flower fields were beautiful. Yellow-bells, prairie stars, sagebrush violets, gold stars, onion, Canby's desert parsley, Whitlow grass, small-flowered blue-eyed Mary, and one phlox plant were some of the flowers seen. We hiked part of the East Uplands North Loop Trail and the east Uplands Trail until it began descending to the canyon. We had lunch on a bench with a view to the canyon below.