Our group did an overnight trip beginning at the south trailhead Yakima Rim trail to Umtanum Canyon via some easy cross country travel. The wildflowers were excellent including cactus in bloom and lots of Lupine, Balsam root and many others I didn't recognize. We spent the night in Roza which was a disappointment as it seems that it's been plowed up for some unknown purpose and old town artifacts were piled up like so much junk. We camped up the trail toward Birdsong and had a pleasant night. Birdsong is definitely the place to camp with it's greenery and spring. Next day we climbed up the ridge toward the north trailhead, but cut over to Umtanum Canyon making an interesting variation on the usual route. Very nice with more wildflowers including a hot pink shooting star that I hadn't seen before. No snakes! No ticks either! Some fun thunderstorms on Saturday!

South Trailhead: For years I have gone to what is described in 55 Hikes in Central Washington as the ""Old Abandoned South Trailhead 1300 feet, 2.7 miles from Gibson Road. You can't drive there..."" Well, actually, you can, so we did. I've never tried the new 1996 trailhead at 0.5 miles from Gibson Road, primarily because I've never ""seen"" it, being focused on getting to the trailhead I know. This time I scouted the new one out a bit and think I'll try it the next time. The old one is just fine, though - after you come around the corner of the drift fence, you do have to take the left of the two parallel roads as you wander into the area with houses, but the entrance through the fence is open, and except for a cattle guard, has no gate I could see. You have to go a bit on faith - no signs anywhere. You can't go wrong if you just follow your nose east toward the canyon rim. After parking in the obvious place, you head down the road 25 feet to the trailhead and begin the long, seemingly endless ascent along the rim above the Yakima River and the canyon. We were assaulted by wind and rain squalls off and on at the top, with that marvelous Washington phenomenon of simultaneous rain and sun, leaving you both wet AND sunburned. No views of Rainier though. We lunched on the rocks overlooking Roza dam, and made our turnaround spot at Twin Springs, funky as ever. The flowers were the best I've seen....bitterroot and lots of phlox, lupine, larkspur, balsamroot.... and there are those buckwheat you can never name. My hiking partners, Mary and Paul, had never been on this hike and were delighted with the scenery and flowers.

Great day, got out of Seattle for sun, and it WAS sunny, wild flowers/sage brush, mild breeze. In the directions in 100 Hike Inland NW the the road leading to buffalo has now been paved (states dirt).

Our party of 8 left a drizzly Seattle at 7 for east side of the mountains. I had done little hiking in sagebrush country and was looking forward to this one. The drive along the dirt road is a nice one with views of expansive, rolling grass and sages slopes cut by small canyons. When we arrived at the trailhead we were the only car there which suprised me as I thought this trail would be a really popular spring hike. We set out in the chill of the morning along the trail which is actually more of a road, a nice road to hike though as it follows the ridge in a serpentine pattern, at times rising to meet the sky. A few small flowers were in bloom, and the sage smelled great. We could hear birds singing off the trail in the nearby sage, but when me and another person went to search for one, the sound always seemed to get another twenty feet farther away and then after awhile we heard it behind us. Those birds are good at keeping hidden. Although it is a 19 mile loop hike, we only hiked maybe 4 miles in. On the way back, the clouds parted slightly and the sun shown like a red rubber ball. When we returned to the parking area, there were several other cars there. We drove down the road and stopped at the creek crossing. We decided to hike down the creek a ways just to explore. A few yahoos were shooting guns across the canyon from on the hill above us, but we survived. We didn't see alot in the canyon except for some interesting birds with colorful markings that I had never seen before. On the way back out we met a man from the fish and wildlife department that was doing a bird count. He said that they now put transmitters on birds and track them by satellite. Evidently when he drove past the yahoos, he gave them the evil eye and they quite shooting. On the way out we met some some people from France and Belgium that had parked their cars even farther back up the road and done the whole loop hike and explored the creek. They were a nice bunch of people and we gave them a ride back to their car. The drive back to Seattle was quite scenic with views to the snow covered Stuart Range and separate beams of the sun streaming through the clouds.

We woke up today to the dreary rainy Spring weather of Auburn, WA and decided to head East and try out the Yakima Rim Trail. It ended up being a good choice, as it was a warm 60 + degrees and mostly sunny. The drive took approximately 2 hours. We followed the directions: Drive east on Interstate 90 and take Exit 109. Drive Canyon Road (scenic state Route 821) to the Selah exit (through the Yakima Canyon). Drive Harrison Road 1.9 miles southwest, turn right on Wenas Road (2.8 miles), to a fire station and a ""Y"" in the road. Go right (straight ahead) three-tenths of a mile on Gibson Road and turn right on Buffalo Road. Pavement ends and the L.T. Murray Wildlife Recreation Area begins. One the left hand side is a large parking area with a gate. We opened the gate at the parking area which is held by a clip lock and chain and proceded to drive on the extremely rutted, big rock, God-forsaken road. After about a mile of nearly bottoming out our van, we parked and decided to walk the last mile to the trail head. Finding the trailhead is another matter, as one might be tempted to walk beyond the next parking area/sign. Instead, look to the right, up the hill (in a canyon) and find the trail. Later, we would discover that this is actually the Spring Trail to the rim, not the most Southern most Trail. The trail climbed straight up the canyon for about a mile, gaining approximately 600 feet. The desert wild flowers are starting to bloom and in that first mile we spotted various species including Cusick's Sunflower, Yellow Balsamroot, Fleabane, Lupine, Sagebrush Violets, Heather, and various flavors of Flox. When we got to the actual rim, we found that we had a perfect view of the Yakima River including the Roza Dam. We were then forced to decide if we would go North or South along the rim trail. Both ways were tempting, however, we soon discovered that we had actually reached a high point over looking the dam and would have to decend about 150 - 200 feet either way and then climb steeply to the next high point (up-and-down like a camel's back). We opted for neither, sat down and ate our lunch and took in the views and enjoyed the beautiful Spring afternoon weather. On the way home, we opted to take Hwy 82 rather than the scenic 821 and were able to save some time. In fact, we stopped by the Brick in Rosyln for dinner. Overall, it was a great way to spend a Spring day. I would highly recommend this hike to anyone wanting to get away from the rain.