[RichP]

Puzzlr, Snowdog, Isabel and I took the long drive over the Cascades to Ellensburg and went south on Canyon Road to the Umtanum Creek Recreation Area. We started the hike in a chilly 15 degrees by crossing the Yakima River on a suspension bridge.

Umtanum Canyon Trailhead.

Crossing the Yakima River.

We took a left immediately after the bridge and railroad tracks and began the ascent up a featureless ridge that was caked with a thin icy layer and a foot of soft powder below. This made for tedious snowshoeing but we shared the trail breaking work to the top of the ridge at 3500' where we took a break in the diminishing sun.

We will head up the ridge to the right.

Starting up the ridge.

A crusty layer with powder underneath made for tedious snowshoeing conditions.

Pushing up the ridge.

Snowdog and Izzy at Point 3511'. Wenas Benchmark is the next bump on the ridge.

We then walked along the ridge to the next highpoint, Wenas Benchmark which tops out at 3630.' There is an earthquake monitor located on this point. None of us has ever seen one of those before.

Cleman Mtn to the south across the Wenas Valey.

Puzzlr arriving to Wenas Benchmark 3630.'

View Southeast from Wenas Benchmark. Baldy and Hog Ranch Buttes in the distance; more highpoints on the 55-mile long Umtanum Ridge. .

West to Rattler Benchmark beyond the antennas.

After a short stop, we began the descent starting in our tracks and then veering off to one of several ridges that can be used to drop back down to the canyon. A fun day out in desert country before the ticks and rattlesnakes wake up. 6.5 miles and 2600' gain.

Almost down.

More info: http://www.bentler.us/eastern-washington/recreation/umtanum-creek.aspx

[lookout bob]

I thought the ticks jump up through the snow to grab a meal.....

[RichP]

[Snowdog]

Really fun & interesting outing! It sure felt like more yesterday than the stats suggest. The constant punching thru thick ice layer, then down a foot or more of soft snow made for tedious travel. Isabel had a challenging day too, hopping from one snowshoe step to the next. Good thing she is an agility dog! Such expansive views too- love eastern Washington's big sky!

[GaliWalker]

Woah! I'm sure that people post them, but I don't think I've seen snowy pictures from there before. Really nice!

[puzzlr]

This was my first significant hike after mostly recovering from a 2 week cold I caught in Guatemala, although there seems to be an abundance of that going around here too. Having done this hike before exactly 6 years ago without any snow I expected a fairly easy day. But with the vastly different snow conditions this turned out to be a real work out. It needed all three of us to break trail in the icy crust. A few of my favorite photos, more on flickr

Green is our GPS track, yellow is the trail route when not covered in snow

Ice on the Yakima River

It looks like we're almost there but there's still almost 500' of gain to go

The icy crust glittered beautifully in the sunlight

One of the long cracks in the thin icy crust. On a glacier this would be concerning, showing the possible presence of a crevasse.

Traversing over to the ridge that the trail runs down (but under the snow and not visible today)

Descending the ridge. The icy crust made a lot of noise first as our snowshoes broke through it, then as broken pieces slid down the slope in front of us.

I looked up the PANGA site - Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array. The "WENA" station here doesn't seem to be reporting data like the others all over the west coast, but the accurate and continuous GPS readings are providing some interesting maps.

WENA PANGA station

Central WA velocity map

West coast velocity map

[wildernessed]