Umtanum Creek Canyon — Wednesday, Apr. 4, 2012

Central Washington > Yakima

Was in Ellensburg for the day, so Bubba and I took Daphne and Zoe, our four-legged companions, on a short 4-mile hike through Umtanum Creek Canyon. No Discovery Pass needed right now. BLM was installing new, wider planks on the suspension bridge today--thanks! The hike was easy, flat, and filled with the wonderful fragrance of sage. Scenery was typical for the drier side of the state, lots of tall grasses and alder, cottonwood and aspen thickets. I was a bit surprised that this wasn't a canyon featuring soaring rock walls, just some not-overly-steep cliffs. Still, the scenery was pleasant enough and the day was warm and sunny. The creek crossing at 1 mile is not a rock hop right now; we did it with shoes off and the water was mighty cold. At 2 miles, we faced another creek crossing and opted for a side trail on the same side of the water we were on. This game path was quite overgrown and we lost the trail about 0.5 mile into it. Had lunch then turned around. Saw lots of birds but no large wildlife and fortunately no snakes either. The dogs had a fun time, although Zoe came back with two ticks. Ran into a handful of people in our 2.5 hours there and only two who braved the first creek crossing.