After our hike up the canyon, we spent time just looking at the hills, searching with our binoculars for any sign of bighorn sheep (we didn’t see any of those) and deer, and strolling along the Yakima River.
We saw many birds of prey over the weekend, bald eagle, osprey, hawks and northern harrier. A blackbird of some type spent time in our campsite looking beautiful in the sunlight.
There were little flowers everywhere and cactus thrown in as well. If you can identify any of them, let me know! The white flowers were super tiny.
The next day we packed up our gear and drove to our next hike. At only 3 miles round trip, Umtanum Creek Falls is a nice easy hike that anyone would enjoy. I imagine it dries out a bit as the season progresses, but there was a lot of mud on the trail this weekend. This trail was way upstream from the lower canyon we had hiked Saturday. To get there we followed a nice wide dirt road. I stopped briefly to take a picture of this old abandoned house.
Here is a prety little wildflower from the Falls hike. I tried to identify it, but I think it was not open all the way, and I was unable to figure out what it was. Again, if you can name that flower, let me know!
The waterfall is a sudden 40 ft plunge over a rock precipice. Only one other family was on the trail, so we pretty much had all that beauty and peacefulness to ourselves. The dogs couldn’t cross the little cliffy scramble to look at the waterfall from the opposite rock wall, so we took turns staying with them.
It was a really fun and beautiful weekend. The sun-kissed golden hills enchanting in their own way, although I think I still prefer the deep damp woods of the west.
Nice pics! I love the one of Cedar checking out the falls. And the blackbird and the second deer picture. We could have looked in my flower book for some of these blooms - I didn't know you were wondering. I assumed you just knew them already. Lol. :)
ReplyDelete