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dcA2dc
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PostMon Mar 29, 2021 10:10 am 
Hello, I've been reading nwhikers for a couple years and meaning to de-lurk for a while, and figured this was as good a place as any - Mountainfisherman, I want to thank you for this post. I've been wanting to do more early season backpacking but am yet not a skilled enough snow hiker or camper to do so up in the alpine, so learning about this option was really helpful. Hope you don't mind me piggybacking on your thread with another mini trip report and a few pictures. I had a great overnight trip in the Wenas this past weekend - went in on a clear, sunny Saturday and made it out yesterday before the weather got bad. I parked at the Umtanum Creek Falls trailhead, strolled down to the falls, and then hiked up on a mix of cross-country and old dirt tracks. Found a spot where the barbed wire was loose enough to duck under, and went up to the Rattler Benchmark high point for great views of the Stuart Range, Rainier, and the tip of Adams. Went down the other side towards the farms above Wenas Lake, up Black Canyon Trail, and camped back down in the trees on the north side of the ridge. There were streams from melting snow down in the larger gullies. Saw no elk, and no other wildlife other than a few small birds and chipmunks. Couple dirt bikes in the distance and one dayhiker. Got windy overnight but not very cold. I hadn't realized that much of this area burned last fall - it seemed like many of the trees were dead (though maybe they'll come back?), and most of the ground was bare and ashy. There were already some green shoots coming up, so it should be interesting to see how everything regenerates over the next few months and years. The purply scrub in the photo below was one of the very few spots that seemed like it had intact ground cover - brown pine needles over ashy mud were much more frequent. Seemed like a lot of the fencing had burned away also, but I may have missed it. Thanks again for sharing this info, and I'm excited to check out more WDFW areas!

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puzzlr
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PostMon Mar 29, 2021 8:51 pm 
Interesting about the fire. I've been here many times and wondered why so much of the landscape is brush free. Maybe it's periodic fires. The gullies with more water are thick with it, though.

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Mountainfisherman
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PostTue Mar 30, 2021 4:54 am 
dcA2dc-what an adventure. Enjoyed the pictures. I haven’t been to the top of the ridge or Black Canyon since the fire-I appreciate the restorative value of fire and it’s cool seeing the grass already coming back out there; I lost a few spots with some memories. Glad you enjoyed the area-there’s a lot to explore and there’s not many people out there.

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dcA2dc
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PostTue Mar 30, 2021 8:45 am 
Thanks! After doing a bit more googling, it looks like my romantic thoughts of the grass regenerating itself were a bit naive - there was apparently a massive re-seeding operation last December, involving both helicopter drops and foot crews, because the fire burned hot enough to destroy the seeds that had been in the ground, as well as most of the brush down in the gullies that I went through. Still nice to know that the land is being taken care of, and will be interesting to watch it re-grow.

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PostSat Apr 03, 2021 3:33 pm 
Today's update-we went in on the Observatory Rd, reached the high point where the road drops into the Umptanum drainage, then went east on the ridge. Ran into a group of 40 elk or so that were feeding there way up the south side of the ridge, back off from them, then ran into another group on the north side, so we threaded the needle to speak between the groups to try to avoid spooking them. From there we could see the 'flat' which is the area down the ridge from the Observatory where it flattens out somewhat, broken by some gullys, before it drops off into cliffs in the Umptanum drainage-which is running pretty good right now. Across the flat, spreading out for a couple of miles, were at a conservative estimate, seven hundred elk. So the trick is to get close enough to watch them, without running them to hell and gone. We dropped off the ridge, avoiding the north side group that was now dropping into the drainage and crossing it on the Observatory side, crossing the creek, and taking an old road up a gully with intention of getting to a stand of trees that I knew of, but we ran into a couple of elk, so we backed out again, looped around a knob and reached a point in the sagebrush/bitterbrush where we could hunker down and watch them and did so for an hour or so as they grazed, laid down, and moved slowly up the flat towards the Observatory Ridge. Further off there was a bachelor group of big bulls, all still packing antlers, then was lying down enjoying the warmth-probably a good mile of so off. There was another fairly big group on the ridge above them and small groups of cows and last year's calves dotting the area. Finally, we worked off the ridge and down into the creek, back up the ridge we came in on. We saw a pygmy horned toad, took a picture of it, and walked back down to gate. There was a reseeding effort, but they didn't get all of the burn area and much of regrowth is natural. You can compare the private vs. the public land if you were to drive out on the Wenas side and you'd see the same growth on both. It has taken years for much of the area to recover from overgrazing by sheep and some of really never has with cheat grass establishing itself. The fire, natural reseeding, and the man made reseeding effort is going to be a chance for more favorable grasses to get reestablished. It's sad to lose some of those stands of trees south of the road, but it will be exciting to watch it come back.

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PostTue Dec 28, 2021 6:14 am 
Thought I’d bring this up again for those of you looking for somewhere to go during the winter months. Had a good but very cold down day walking in off the Observatory Rd. Last Sunday-the last ‘warm’ day before the big cool down. 7 degrees when we started. About 8 inches of snow. We highpointed and built a fire and watched elk and deer moving about the area and there were plenty about. If you’re coming out of Ellensburg, Umptanum Rd takes you out there-the light by McDonald’s and out of Selah, Wenas Rd will take you all the way out there. Despite the snow coverage and cold, plenty of food for animals. It greened up nicely over the fall with all the moisture we had and spots that get direct sunlight even in this cold melt off-so there are open patches for the younger ones. Fun to find a spot and observe.

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Mountainfisherman
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PostSat Feb 19, 2022 7:35 pm 
I've been out west of the Selah Ellensburg Rd the last four weekends, twice heading up through Cascade Park where the road has been cleared of snow for logging so you can walk up that to hell and gone on the Hogranch Rd. if you're looking for a fairly long walk without having to use snowshoes. Didn't see any animals either trip, snow had been fairly deep-foot or so, and varied between being soft and hard crusted depending on aspect or exposure. The warming of the last several weeks exposed a lot of terrain, greening up, and I was able to get off the road and hike to the top of Manastash Ridge without snowshoes. It was on with the elk, they were all over the place and I had to work at not exposing myself and running them off. I got up to the aforementioned rock 'blind' with the stovepipe and went to ground and watched numerous large groups of elk on the open area between the 'hump' that the blind is built on and the trees lining the edgetop of the ridge. It's not unusual to see and hear coyotes, but I saw two individual yotes get run off by cow elk. Yotes, even a group, are no threat to a healthy elk but the are always circulating around, hoping for a sick or injured animal to weaken or die. A group of elk pounding down the snow also opens up ground that the coyotes normal small prey find food. After watching coyote/elk interactions and the elk were mostly wandering up in the trees and to the top of the ridge, I got up to circle around the knob out of sight of the remaining animals and head to the plywood blind I've mentioned before and as I turned around, two large bulls were standing about 30 yards behind me. If I had remained sitting it would have been interesting to see how close they would have come to me. Although, it's rare to see them, I see cougars tracks and kills fairly frequently, moreso deer than elk. A female cougar used to live around the Umptanum waterfall and bear her young near there. I never saw them personally, but saw her tracks with a smaller set numerous times. A little spooky to see cougar tracks over your tracks when walking out of there. That area is so open you'd think you'd see them or even a glimpse of them but I never have. The Wenas Lake bald eagle was on a dead something out in a field-I have no idea if it's the same bird but I've been seeing one every winter for the past five years around the lake, usually on a pole where the road makes the first curve around the lake coming from the east. There are turkeys along the creek, usually in the fields immediately past the lake, but they've expanded some and are further up the creek valley. I'm going to get out and check out a different spot tomorrow before the cold snap hits, but even then by next weekend it will be warming again. March and April are wonderous times to wander around out there, not that this has been bad.

Fedor, hikerbiker
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RichP
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PostSun Feb 20, 2022 9:21 am 
I'm a big fan of hiking in our wildlife areas. Outside of the main hunting season hardly anybody goes there. Game trails and old roads to explore galore. yesterday I was out on the west side of Smyrna Bench in the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area in the scablands. This abuts DNR and BLM land for a huge area to explore on the north slope of The Saddle Mtns near Royal City.

hikerbiker, Fedor  Lindsay
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