Mid 50's and sunny? Nah. Let's instead go to Ellensburg where it is 20 degrees colder and cloudy! We were in town for the CWU-WWU basketball game, but unfortunately the east side of the Cascades is under a massive fog bank. We made the most of it by getting in this small hike along the canyon rim at Umtanum Creek in the Yakima Canyon. Endless amount of game paths and old jeep tracks to hike along and explore.
We started at Umtanum Creek TH, crossed the bridge and railroad and went left at the fork to go up the ridge trail. But soon we left the trail on a path that went up the steep hill to the left. This path was muddy at the start and pretty slick, but as it got higher and merged with other paths it became a nice little trail. We climbed up the nose of the ridge to the jeep track, and hung a left and walked out to the viewpoint along the rim up ahead. We turned around and followed the jeep track around the bend and up the side canyon to the grove of woods where it meets the main ridge trail. We hiked up the main trail for about 1/3 a mile until where is begins to veer left and leave the canyon for the ridge. This is where we instead went right and left the trail, hiking XC and along the occasional game path. We were aiming back to the side canyon where the main trail comes up. We came across a more defined path and decided to hike that as it led out to the rim of Umtanum Canyon. We now had to find a new way off of the hill back into the canyon, we we hiked until we came to a steep ravine that dropped into the canyon. We put on our traction and followed a faint path down the steep ravine and returned to the main Umtanum Canyon Trail, which is solid ice.
Route: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move264343681
Beware that the Umtanum parking lot is now under full control of the BLM (federal), so Discover Passes are no longer accepted. You now have to pay a $5 day use fee or have the America the Beautiful pass (not a forest pass, as this is BLM).
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