Wanted to find an overnight where it wouldn't rain much, which on those dates left us searching around Yakima. I'd been wanting to check out the Wenas Wildlife Area for a while anyway since it's an Important Bird Area and iirc the Audubon Society has done camping trips there in years past.
Route: The route we took doesn't quite line up with any existing listing I could find; we drove up Durr Road until it went from just an uneven unpaved road to something more for ATVs, then followed the road until we hit Roza Creek, then followed that trail down to the Yakima River, reaching it just south of the Big Pines Campground: https://www.gaiagps.com/map/?loc=12.3/-120.5438/46.7815&pubLink=ZPFw2oGlbSwpFaPTNNaXQqZr&trackId=1579a3be-1154-4f32-af92-0f4213ff48af
Water access: Since we wanted an overnight, water access was a concern. We couldn't find water in Roza Creek until some distance down, and what we found was stagnant - there were four frogs in one pool! Unless you are dying of dehydration here, do not drink the frog water. Right by Birdsong Tree, about 4 miles from our starting point, there's some nice flowing water just uphill (on the left as you're heading outward on the trail) maybe a hundred yards. There were a couple more spots where we heard flowing water, but we elected to head down to the Yakima River, which is convenient to access from there - nice to stop and dangle our dusty feet into.
Birds & wildlife: Birdsong tree lives up to its name! Saw at least 6 western tanagers, plus numerous redwing blackbirds and a variety of other species I didn't know. There are birds all along the creek, but Birdsong Tree is a particularly good spot. Down by the Yakima River, there were some, including some kind of swift or swallow eating bugs, and then when it was getting dark, the bats came out to take over. There were clouds of gnats, but they weren't persistent. Some mosquitoes but not too many. We saw a number of bones along the trail, including a nearly-complete skeleton, which we figured must be deer, though probably young ones, unless the deer out here are smaller. Heard coyotes in the distance once, plus scat along the trail, but no other sign of them. Saw four snakes, but none of them rattlers. Oh, and of course the four frogs :)
Flowers: Lots of flowers! I wish I were better at identifying these, but there was a good density of them, in excellent variety, in a full rainbow of colors, at least on the earlier parts of the trail. Further down there weren't as many, but the cottonwoods along the creek made for nice scenery. The edge of the Yakima River was lined with yellow irises.
Camp site: This was kind of a weird place to camp, since we were just across the Yakima River from a fairly busy road, and on our other side from the river was an active train track - I think about 4 trains passed while we were there from late afternoon Wednesday to late morning Thursday. There were even a handful of boats that went past us on the river (fishing or kayaking). Particularly odd since the only other soul we saw on our side of the river was one DNR employee driving back from some weed management. As to the campsite itself, we found a nice flat open area with room for two tents a couple hundred yards north of where the trail would continue on the river side of the railroad tracks only a stone's throw from the river. It would have been possible to camp at Birdsong Tree as well, and either location had plenty of trees to hammock from.
On the whole, this is a good area, and I'd be happy to come back to it, including for longer trips.
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