BJ74 Naches Reconnaissance Run

[Glenn-BJ74]

Here is a story of three BJ74s touring the Interior of Washington State, including Ellensburg, Naches, Yakima, Goldendale, Glenwood and Mt. St. Helens.

Day 1 Friday – Scramble through the Border

Well I finally got some interest in checking out some of the Naches trails in Washington State. Gary T, Bill W. and I decided to do a recon run into the Interior of Washington State looking for some dry and warm weather behind the Cascades Mountains. Our last October 2010 run through the Whipsaw was cold and wet so we were looking for better weather and new terrain to explore.
On Friday, October 7th I came over from the Island and met Gary and Bill at the truck scale just north of the truck border that night. The border line-up was surprising short for a long-weekend and Bill and I went through without incident. However, the US border guards were delaying Gary .... and Bill and I were getting worried they might not let him in. Gary had only a driver’s license and an expired passport?? After a few anxious minutes, Gary got through and it turned out that the border guards were more interested in his rig interrogating him from the passenger’s and driver’s side windows. Once though the border we hit the Cost Cutter to load up on food, the truck stop to load up on diesel and then we went to the Birch Bay Leisure Park to crash at Gary’s father’s trailer.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 2 Saturday- Mike Walsh’s and his Cushman Collection

Saturday morning we packed our stuff and immediately drove to Harbor Freight in Bellingham to load up on cruiser crap and tools. From Harbor Freight we went to my favorite sandwich shop, Avenue Bread in Bellingham for a huge lunch, and then we continued to the Seattle Outlets, just north of Marysville. There Bill bought shoes, Gary video equipment and I bought a heavy-duty hoody for the winter. Saturday being on a holiday weekend, the place was a zoo with huge crowds of shoppers. Once through those crowds we hit the freeway again and headed south on I-5, 405 and turned east onto I-90 and through Snoqualmie Pass down the back on the Cascades to the dry Interior of Washington State.

At Ellensburg, we fuelled and bought more food before looking for the Umtanum trail. This was as a trial I had found on the Web (Washington Trails). While at the grocery store two locals, Mike Walsh and son Walter struck up a conversation with Gary and Bill in the parking lot about our ‘weird’ rigs. They continued yammering away and it was getting late so I urged the crew to pull stakes and head for the hills. We found Umtanum Road and after some confusion following Mike’s directions, we found ourselves on Manatash Road with Mike Wash following us. We stopped to talk again and after their insistence we decided to camp in Mike’ field under the rolling golden hills of the Ellensburg Valley. After setting up camp in Mike’s 3 acre field, son Walter lit a roaring campfire in our honor. Mike continued to talk our ears off and we barely had time to scarf down some ‘emergency’ soup before darkness. We continued yakking until we ran out semi-truthful stories to tell and finally we hit the hay. In the morning, Mike Walsh gave us a tour of his magnificent collection of antique Cushman motorcycles, scooters, trikes and Honda Trail bikes. After a quick breakfast we bid farewell to hosts Mike and Walter and headed out looking for adventure in whatever comes our way.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 3 Sunday - Monatash Ridge

From Mike’s place we followed the Umtanum Road and into the golden hills. These hills reminded us of the Douglas Ranch area, but the area was much bigger and more open with a maze of good gravel roads going everywhere. We eventually found a junction where the roads started to deteriorated, which raised our hopes for some interesting wheeling. There we saw the ‘green dot’ signs and another very new looking sign saying that all users of state land needed the new Discovery Pass.

Beginning July 1, 2011 all users of state land in Washington State require a Discovery Pass, which is a yellow pass that hangs from the rearview mirror, visible from the front of the vehicle. Discovery Passes are included in state camping permits, hunting, and fishing and ORV licenses; but without those each vehicle needs a Discovery Pass for driving on state back roads ($35.00 per year). Apparently the Washington State has passed legislation requiring agencies administering state lands to be financially self-supporting from users. The Discover Passes are not required in National Forests. Unless we are planning to spend all of our time in National Forests, next time we come we will need to buy a Discovery Passes.

Well back to the trip. After driving up and down the scenic ridges overlooking the Ellensburg Valley we eventually found a little streamside camping spot by Wenas Creek. We set up camp, had hot steamy showers, ate a multi-course dinner and enjoyed the evening ski before retiring to our comfy warm rigs.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 4 Monday - Bethel Ridge Trail

That morning we decided to go to Naches. We drove into the small town and had a look around, then crossed the bridge over the Naches River and went to the town of Tieton. We past a dozen large fruit packing plants and many semi’s loaded with fruit and corn and thousands of acres of apple trees. These were the most unusual apple trees. They were small trees, maybe 8-10’ tall, strung in rows along wires and absolutely over-loaded with apples. These trees are set up that way to make it easy for the apple pickers, which are in short supply. After our Tieton orchard tour we headed back to Naches and pulled into a bar and restaurant for lunch. After rubbing shoulder with the locals we headed west on Hwy 12 into the Wenatchee National Forest. National Forests allow ‘dispersed camping’ without permits. We followed Hwy 12 along the beautiful Tieton River which provided us with views of volcanic cliffs and basaltic columns. Eventually we arrived at the Bethel Ridge Road turn-off east of Rimrock Lake.

We followed the Bethel Ridge Road, headed up a high quality gravel road, although it was severely wash-boarded in places. The Bethel Ridge road climbed for a long while through several long switch backs and just before we got to the top we past two wood cutters loading 10’ logs into their overloaded F-350. Just past the wood cutters at 6,200 feet we entered clouds and our view of the magnificent Tieton Valley was obstructed by fog. At the top we found the Bethel Ridge trailhead which runs along the ridge line parallel to the valley. On a clear day the views would be incredible, but we were surrounded in cold fog. Gary and I jokingly suggested we camp on Bethel Ridge. Bill repeatedly insisted he did want to camp up here because it was cloudy and cold. We had a look at the huge microwave tower with its top not visible through the fog. On our way down from the ridge we took a road that took off from a switchback. Down that road we found great views of the valley and Rimrock Lake and several great camping spots. We concluded these sites would great base camps, which would allow us to explore the volcanic landscape area in more detail. It was getting late in the day so we continued our descent to the warmer valley and found a camping spot on a side hill hidden in the bush not far from the highway. It rained that night, but we had our tarps up.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Bethel Ridge ...

More pics

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Bethel Ridge ...

This is off the main road where a base camp would be great for hiking.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 5 Tuesday – Louie’s Way Trail and the Inebriated Pickers

That next morning we decided to look for Louie’s Way, another NWJeep trail which was further along Hwy 12 east of Rimrock Lake. We found the forest road turn-off and soon into the trail we discovered the rain had turned the trail into a slippery clay gumbo similar to the mud we encountered last May long weekend at Churn Creek.

We cautiously crept our way along the trail ‘slipping and sliding’ on the hills and we eventually got to fantastic viewpoint just past some 4’ mud holes. All locked up I got through two of these mud holes, but I knew that Bill’s AT tires and lack of lift he would not make it through. This turned out to a wise decision because the mud holes got deeper. Gary and I walked in several kilometers and concluded that only a high-horsepower rig on 44’s would have a chance to power through these 6’ to 7’ mud holes. Although this trail was rated as ‘easy’ a few years, due to extensive damage caused by irresponsible wheelers, the trail is ‘most difficult’.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 5 Tuesday – Louie’s Way Trail and the Inebriated Pickers

It looks like Louie's Way goes around that volcanic outcropping in Post #7

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Rimrock Lake

After a look at Louie’s Way we drove around Rimrock Lake, which we did in sunshine which just broke through the clouds when we arrived at the lake. Rimrock Lake is a gem, with many campsite and dozens of intriguing trails heading south into the Goat Rock Wilderness Area.

I would expect Rimrock Lake to be crowded in summer, as it is easily accessible and has a large capacity to accommodate campers. We all agreed this would be an ideal area to explore in warmer weather and being in a National Forest ‘dispersed camping’ is permitted. Just before leaving the Rimrock Lake we aired up and drove along Hwy 12 decided back to the Yakima to dry out for a day or two.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Inebriated Pickers

Yakima is near the Yakima Training Center, which is live-fire US army anti-aircraft artillery range. Yakima is also near the US Department of Energy’s decommissioned Hanford Nuclear Site, which produced plutonium for the first atomic bomb detonated at the Trinity Site as part of the Manhattan Project. We arrived in Yakima late in the day so we were forced to stay nearby and the only place we could find was the Yakima Sportsman State Campground, located by the Yakima River in what Gary called an oasis in the desert.

We camped by two iterant apple pickers, who were ‘whooping it up’ around a roaring campfire surrounded with 2 to 3 dozen empty beer cans. Both pickers were fully inebriated and warned us to be on the lookout for a marauding cat, who stole their 15 lb. chicken (they don’t make’em that big). They also warned us about the skunks that come out from the bush at night. We first thought this was a big mistake and we would kept awake all night long, from the hooting and hollering, but we had little alternative with darkness approaching. Well to our amazement the goofy pickers went to bed at 9:00 pm, the cat came out to steal their dinner scrapes (which we speculated happens every night) and later the skunk came out to see what was left over.

What a weird experience that was!

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 6 Thursday – Klickitat River

As they said the apple pickers left at 5:00 am without any noise leaving the messiest camping site I have seen. After breakfast we left the Sportsman State campground and headed south to extend our dry weather tour. We entered the huge Yakima Indian Reserve and fueled up at Toppinish ($1.00 USD per litre) and then drove southwest on Hwy 97 which is designated as a ‘scenic byway’. Just north of the rural town of Goldendale we found the Brooks Memorial State Campground. There we had hot shower (for 50¢), lunch and took pictures of some Bluebirds.

Feeling clean and with full stomachs we turned west on Hwy 142 into Goldendale. There we passed a Dairy Queen, which Bill can’t do – so we had to stop for ice cream sundaes. Gary spent a few anxious minutes investigating a possible rad hose leak, which we fixed. We drove through the pleasant little town of Goldendale and along Hwy 142 and took the Glenwood turn off. This was a stroke of luck as this road descended into an incredibly little canyon, in the bottom of which flowed the Klickitat River.

My US topo maps indicated a faint turn-off on the left at the bottom of the canyon, which we took. Just before approaching what we thought was the camping area we turned down a little wiggly road, which dead ended at a fishing hole. After about 20 minutes we were visited by a Tacoma pick-up and Bill was predicting doom and gloom that we would be told to leave. We were on state land so we actually needed the Discovery Pass, which we did not have. It turned to be a friendly fisherman, nursing a bud lite with his wife who wanted to us check out our camp. They were astounded that we had driven this far and we were not fisherman! Relieved that we could stay the night at this incredible spot - we decided to celebrate by cooking up a gigantic pot of delicious spaghetti. We ate dinner around our aluminum dining table and talked about the day’s events and admired the bright starry night sky with the Klickitat River rippling not far away.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Klickitat River

More pictures ...

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 7 Thursday – Mount Helens Volcanic Monument

From the Klickitat River we packed up early to avoid detection and drove into the little rural town of Glenwood. Gary who is usually last up did not get breakfast that morning because of our stealthy departure so he suggested we have a bite to eat. We found the only restaurant in town with a “Home Cooking” sign out front. I had two eggs, a large pile of fried potatoes and a plate sized pancake, which I could not finish for $4.95.

Glenwood is in 1950’s time wrap complete with old cars (e.g. 1950 Kaiser Ambassodor) and gas station that said 20¢ per gallon on their busted gas pumps. As we drove around Glendale the locals were pulling back there curtains and gawking out their windows looking at our weird little Toyota Landcruisers idling through town.

I suggested we leave before the local Sherriff gets in on the action and so we took off for Trout Lake to find the Mt Adams Ranger Station at Trout Lake to get information on Mt. St. Helens.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Mt. St. Helens

We found the Ranger Station in Trout Lake and once inside we found a nice pleasant older Ranger and an old gaunt white haired lady Ranger, both decked out in impressive National Forest Service uniforms. The lady ranger was an older woman with a permanently affixed stern look to her quietly pecking on her computer, apparently not paying any attention to us. Within a minute of the older Ranger telling us the best place to view Mt. St Helens, the stern older women stood to her feet and contradicted him and told us to take FS 88 and go the Windy Point turn-off. The three of us stood there silently nodding politely, afraid to say a word fearing that anything we said would evoke her further wrath. After thanking the two we backed out of the building and Bill suggested we should nick-name the two Rangers – the ‘Bickersons’, while we all felt a little sorry for the older gentleman who had to work with the stern old Ranger lady. The information we got from the ranger Station confirmed that best view of the blown out crater would be from the East side rather than the more popular west side access from I-5

We followed FS 88, which was a narrow twisty, but paved road that wound its way through the dense park-like forest. We were able catch glimpses of the imposing Mt Adams (12,276’), which is located directly to the east of Mount St. Helens, and area is deserving of further exploration. After a few hours we got to the Windy Point turn-off which winds its way through the mountains and soon we began to notice thousands of bare standing trees, evidence that we had entered the volcanic blast zone. We saw Sprit Lake, which is still full of thousands of floating logs left over from the volcanic blast that occurred 31 years ago. We arrived at the cold Windy Ridge viewpoint we could clearly see the mile-wide crater on the back side of the volcano.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Mt.St. Helens

The picture below is the "before" picture.The second picture is during the eruption.

Mt. St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, which was the most destructive volcanic event in US history. The blast killed 57 people, destroyed 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways, and 185 miles of highway. The eruption measured 5.1 on the Richter scale and reduced Mt. St. Helen’s mountain peak by 1,300 feet and left a 1 mile wide horseshoe-shaped crater you can see it the picture. Since then the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to preserve the volcano’s blast area for scientifically study.

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Mt St Helens

More pictures

 

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Pumice Pickers and Spirit Lake

more pics

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 7 Thursday -cont'd

After that we were anxious to drop elevation to warm up and find a camp site as we were burning up our last daylight. We had to stay within the National Forest and drove around a maze of forest roads in dense wet forest for about an hour looking for a half-decent camp site without success. In desperation we drove south back to Trout Lake and turned up a forest road that had a sign saying Layser Cave.

We climbed steadily up a secondary forest road and came to a sloped pull-off that was barely useable for a camp spot. Bill and Gary scouted farther up the road without any luck so we decided to stay near the cave. At least it was dry and fairly warm.

After a quick dinner Gary and I decided to do night hike down to the cave which was perfect for a dark October evening approaching Halloween. In the Cave we took pictures and speculated what the cave was used for by the native Indians. After that we crawled into our rigs and after good sleep we packed our rigs and headed north to air up before we hit the I-5.

The last picture looks like limestone holding the rock fragments together in the cave's roof..

 

[Glenn-BJ74]

Day 8 Home Sweet Home

Our next stop was Cabelas located in Lacey, WA. Well if you like outdoors gear - Cabelas has it all. There we had lunch and shopped for a few hours. After that the plan was to stay at Birch Bay, Friday night and go through the border Saturday morning. Camping close to home that night it hit -3C that night, the coldest night we had the entire trip. Saturday morning we packed up for the last time and parted ways before heading though the Canadian border .

This trip turned out to a memorable one that gave us a sampling of Washington State’s deserts, volcanic mountain scenery and rural American culture, calling out to us ‘you all come back now’ - we will return to the Naches and Rimrock Lake areas when it is warmer

 

[canucksafari]

Fantastic write-up Glenn. Thanks for sharing. We only spent a few days doing the Northern Cascades and Okanogan but I am looking forward to going back next year. Super nice people and lots to explore.