Rattlesnake Dance Ridge Trail, Umtanum Creek Canyon, Selah Butte & Yakima Skyline Trail — Sunday, Mar. 21, 2021

Big weekend out hiking/camping in Yakima with Ngie! They wrote separate trip reports for each hike but... I'm lazy...

General report for the area: the snow is all gone, and the flowers are juuust starting. In about 1-3 weeks they're going to be popping out there. Lots of opportunities for hiking and camping in the area, and lots of people out taking advantage of the good weather. 

We started Saturday with Rattlesnake Dance Ridge, which is a fun, short & steep little conditioner with nice views of the river. We went past the summit to the end of the trail where there's a "lost spring" in an old tire. Also found a whole elk skeleton, which was awesome. (pics below, don't scroll to the end if you're squeamish.) On the way down we met Burt the dog, who was the CUTEST. 

We then drove by Umtanum, but the construction of the parking lot/bridge has started and according to signage it will be out of commission until end of May. 

Next stop was finding a campsite... There's a big campground across from the Baldy Mountain trailhead (Big Pines Campground) but it was PACKED so we drove over to Roza Recreation Site which only has 6 camp sites.. Unfortunately there was a group there doing their darnedest to make a whole campground's worth of noise. I remembered why I kind of hate front country camping.. lol. People blasting music and doing donuts in the parking lot until after 10. UGGH. 

Sorry, I just can't help being a cranky old man.

Anyway, after picking a campsite we drove over to Selah Butte, which is another short and steep one. It has a small parking area so it's pretty quiet compared to other hikes in the area. We got sun, rain, hail, then more sun... Nice views at the top, but I still maintain that Baldy has the best views in the canyon. 

We had a little time to kill before going back to the campground so we wandered around Selah Cliffs Natural Area Preserve, a short and easy interpretive trail.

Sunday morning, I overcame my crankiness about other campers and we drove over to Wenas Wildlife Area to hit up Gracie Point. You can also access Gracie Point from the regular Yakima Skyline Trailhead.. Either way is a bit long, we just chose this way because we did Yakima Skyline recently and I wanted to hit up more side trails. It was cloudy and windy so not the best conditions for comfort or views, but still we had fun. Nice views of the canyon, it was fun seeing the dam, and all the peaks we had hit up on the other side of the canyon. On the other side there's a nice view of Yakima and we could just barely see hints of Adams and Rainier in the distance. I bet it's stunning on a clear day.

Overall, this is a great area to hit up early in the season when the weather is bad in the passes... I think Yakima Canyon is especially beautiful when there's snow, but also it's going to be stunning soon when the flowers really pop!