[Quark]

The following photos will tell the tale more than I can do. What a goregous place; a perfect central Washington ramble. It's one of those places where as you're driving on Alt 97 and you're looking into the canyons as you whiz by them, you think to yourself, "gee, I'd love to ramble back there." This is Swakane Canyon. Frank picked this one out of Alan Bauer's and Dan Nelson's latest book. Wow! (this is a direct quote from the book). It's a road walk (the road is closed), but there's plenty of hill-rambling available - it's a steep area, and the soil is loose, and rocks kick up easily, so watch it. We mostly stayed on the road. No snakes yet. We saw 4 or 5 herds of deer, and there's plenty more around, as evidenced by the roto-tilling they have done on the mountainsides. Plenty evidence of coyotes, too, though we didn't see any. It's a steep road-walk, and there are many, many places to stop and gaze on the scenery. As usual with any central Washington ramble, you never get very far due to the constant stopping and gazing. We stopped & had lunch overlooking an exposed dike in a hilltop (I'll work on the photo and post it later), and far below, Turtle Rock and the pretty wind-patterns in the Columbia River, the gleaming sparkle of Wenatchee in the distance, and snowy Taneum and Coluckum beyond that. We went about 3.5 miles or so to an obvious turn-around point; a saddle with a light bootpath to a rocky summit. From here you can see down to the bright, sunny strip of the Waterville Plateau, over toward the mountains of Chelan, and the tips of the Enchantments. The views down to the Columbia and Turtle Rock are great. One of the most wonderful things about central Washington are the cloud-scapes, and we weren't disappointed here. We watched several clouds sweeping the area with their particular flavor of precip; some with the wisp of grey rain, others trailing white snow and sleet beneath them. We were gently swept by snow and sleet for a while, and it was beautiful. We're batting pretty good for rainbows on our trips. We saw a slight one at the corner of a sweep of sleet and snow. If I could ever stop stopping on these central Washington trails, I'd love to get in further. WORTHY OF NOTE: The waitresses at the 59'er Diner were great; we came in close to closing time and I offered to take our food to go. They asked if we were coming from the Pass or toward. I said, "toward." They insisted we stay and eat, since they heard reports of rain and snow at the Pass, and they wanted us to concentrate on driving, not eating. It was great advice; it was very difficult to see the road through the fog, snow and rain. Enjoy the photos, and thanks to Alan L. Bauer!

looking down draw to Turtle Rock for posting on web

Swakane Cyn classic view sans my sunglasses in the way

sleet sweeping in looking toward waterville plateau

pastoral view

[frankm3]

This really was a neat hike. It has both open spaces and forest, the soft green carpet of the hills contrasting with rock outcroppings, big views down to the Columbia River and back to Wenatchee, and wildlife, birds of all sorts, a trail to hike, or open ground to ramble, and peace and quiet. We only saw a couple folks, and then had the whole place to ourselves. We are already studying Alan and Dan's Best Desert Hikes book for another eastside trip; it's a great resource! We literally saw a ton of birds: woodpeckers, magpies, ravens, saw an eagle chasing prey, an unspecified hawk, a sage grouse, and several chukars (Salish take note). These are just the birds I can remember. Animals; lots of deer, coyote sign, and a chipmunk (pictured below). We also saw a den excavated under some rocks that would have worked for a coyote-sized animal. We walked a decent bit further than the 'official' hike, if that's in any way indicative of how enjoyable we found the scenery here: Trip stats - 5.4 miles in, and up 2,400' from the parking area at 1,500' to our turnaround at 3,900'. We did a bit of cross-country travel on the way out which cut off a mile and a half on the way down, 9.2 miles in all. I imported my GPS waypoints into USAPhotomaps to figure all this out.

chipmunk

swakane canyon scenery

[Mount Logan]

Beautiful!

[Stones]

Thanks for that. I've driven by on 97 many times with the same longing. Swakane is pretty gneiss.

[Quark]

5.4 miles in......! I suppose someday I'll hike as others hike, with no dawdling and dangling and stopping and aweing so I'd have a pretty good idea re: mileage. we were both also pleasantly surprised to see that magpies aren't black and white, but have a blue and green iridescence. I mean we were happy with them being black and white, if that were the case, but the sunlight played not only on the water, clouds and hills, but on the backs of the beautiful birds.

[GeoHiker]

Great report! Nothing like E.WA in the spring. Thanks to your report it's been bumped up a few knotches on my To Do list.

[Alan Bauer]

It's nice to read that you two clowns had such a good day over there The things you saw are exactly as I experienced in there also: TONS of mule deer and a bazillion species of birds, including non-black-and-white magpies. I particularly enjoy birding for woodpeckers in that open forested region. Keep having fun!

[Jeff R]

Great place, nice report! It is comforting to see that with a little extra drive, people can frolic in the sun, and not in the snow!

[Andrew]

The landscape in that area is very beautiful. The photos that you two took are very nice and I certainly see the potential for Central Washington's wonderful cloudscapes.

[frankm3]

Thanks guys!!! Seemingly, we have no ticks to report, and no snakes either. Mostly unrelated, but extremely irritating: paying $42/ month for high speed internet service, and getting the 'red x' on one of the few photos I've uploaded to my online storage. I had to edit my original post and attach the photo again in order for it to display.

[salish]

Great report! I've been in there a few times in the fall and it's really sweet. The main theme I think of when it comes to the view from Swakane and Chelan Butte - "Elbow Room". I just love it over there.

[wildernessed]

I did that trip a couple weeks ago with my wife, had good weather, recieved a good sunburn. The road/trail eventually heads back West over the ridgeline and is called "Entiat Summit Road" it goes all the way to Chiwawa Rd. N of Leavenworth over 4-5k' plus peaks. wildernessed

[Quark]

wildernessed - how far back can a person go on foot before the road is open to vehicles again; and is the hiking road we were on open for vehicles during hunting season? It's a very good road. We were in over 5 miles, and didn't run across a second gate to close the road from the other side. I was simply in awe of the place. It was spectacular to the nth degree. I could have rambled there forever. You are lucky to live so close to such an amazing area. I have a sunburn, too! We had a little snow and sleet, but mostly sun on our faces. My photo of the sleety cloud actually has a tiny rainbow in the lower right corner. It's hard to see. It was so pretty to see that snow shower with a rainbow and sunny Waterville Plateau beyond.

[wildernessed]

It didn't look like anyone had driven up there to me, we did not go to the first summit or peak which is around 3900' but just beyond 3200' or so before the road/trail turns back west. I don't know about vehicles, but I wouldn't put it past someone, they probably use ATV's though. I was looking at The Washington State Recreation Map and it showed a forest road connecting from deep in the canyon to the ridgeline once it lost some elevation. I could zoom in on it with TOPO but that would be a beautiful trip but long, hot, and waterless. If you were out nearly before dawn you could make the ridge then be heading W away from the sun. I will have to draw a profile of that loop and post it here and see what it looks like. Your pics were great. Did you do the trip yesterday ? I was finishing up a trip around 5:15pm near Cashmere when the trail turned and the sky was purple, first thunder I have heard since we moved out here last Sept. The Wenatchee area does have access to alot of portals to various types of backcountry terrrain. I love this place. wildernessed

[frankm3]

Hey, thanks for the additional info. That answers a couple questions we had looking at various maps, etc. Unrelated to hiking- can you help us understand the syntax of your username? Is it the past tense of the word 'wilderness', or is it a construction of the words 'wilderness' with the name 'ed' added on the end? Quark is an English major, and I am just plain curious...