Durr Road and North Yakima Skyline — Sunday, Apr. 9, 2017

Central Washington > Yakima

I spent two days hiking the Durr Road, North Yakima Skyline trail, following the guidance of the "Best Desert Hikes" and an old copy of the "100 Classic Hikes in Washington". The drive in was horrendous, especially for my low-clearance Subaru. Deeply rutted Durr road, with washouts and huge rocks made the going very slow and nerve-rattling. I would highly recommend driving up to the trailhead from the other side (the river side). The last couple miles aren't great, but much better than the other way. All that said, the hike was beautiful and windy/cold for April, but the flowers are starting to show and the sun definitely felt good after a wet Seattle winter. Following the guidebooks' advice, I went along the ridge until it dropped to Roza creek. There's no water until you reach the creek, but there's plenty as you follow the drainages until about a mile from the ridge. The books say to follow game trails along the drainages once the old Roza creek road veers off from the creek. I discovered many game trails (and saw elk and mule deer on the way), but it was slow going through the dense thickets of sage brush along the drainages. So I went higher, paralleling the drainages and eventually stumbled onto beautiful flower fields. Yellow bell, buttercups, daisies and violets (a few) are carpeting patches of hillsides.