Umtanum Creek Canyon — Monday, Feb. 26, 2024

Ethan, Karen, Brenda, & I took a walk at Umtanum Canyon today.  The outhouse at the trailhead was still stocked with TP on a Mon morning.  We walked up the canyon almost to the second crossing.  The first crossing, however, was a bit of an adventure.  The creek is high, but there were a few small logs across, so I gave it a try.  Half way across one of the logs broke and I got wet half way up my thigh.  The rest of the party scrounged around for more logs and finally had enough so they thought they could get across without getting wet, which they did.  It might be easier right now to come up the trail on the north side of the creek.  Once we got almost to the second crossing, we turned right and headed up the major sidecanyon that comes in from the north.  Karen had been up this canyon right after the Evans Canyon fire when there wasn't much brush, but despite a game trail, it was quite brushy today.  The footing was often uneven and there was water in the creek, which made the walking a little more difficult than if it had been dry.  It was quite strenuous and took about an hour to get half-way up the canyon.  At this point we decided to climb out of the canyon and traverse the open hillside to the ridge-top.  Then we had to walk east close to a mile to get to the rim of the Yakima Canyon where we found a scenic spot for lunch.  It had clouded up and become cold by this time, but we still stayed most of an hour.  Karen was going to bring a treat with a candle for my birthday last week, but she wasn't feeling well, so she brought it today and so I got to blow out a belated birthday candle.  Afterwards we walked back down the ridge above the Yakima Canyon to the last ravine before the mouth of Umtanum Canyon and descended moderate slopes and the ravine to the river and back to the cars.  We saw buttercups and Canby's desert parsley, heard canyon wrens, and I saw some deer as we were descending.  By the time we were done we had walked 5.5 miles and climbed 1200'.  It doesn't look bad on paper, but ol' Mytho-Man found it much more strenuous than he would have liked.