Yakima camping, day 4, rain!

May, 2019

Although it had rained in this general area of eastern Washington State not long before I arrived, it didn’t rain at all after I arrived. It felt so dry here to me. Maybe that had to do with humidity. Maybe it had to do with the lack of great huge evergreen trees all around me (like I was used to on the west side of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State). But whatever the reason, even though it looked green here, it still felt awfully dry.

But this afternoon … on my drive this afternoon … it rained! oh yummy yum yum. 🙂

It didn’t rain hard, and it didn’t rain for very long, but it was wet and cool and it felt so good.

For this afternoon’s outing, I took off in the big white truck to explore an area called Ahtanum State Forest, owned and managed by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Rumor had it that there were campgrounds on this land, in the foothills on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountain Range.

It was just a few minutes drive from Yakima south to Union Gap on the freeway, and then about an hour’s drive west of Union Gap through very pleasant countryside, small farms, a few cows here and there, lots of horses.

If you want to follow along on a map (or Google Earth), go south from Yakima on I-82 to Union Gap … head west on West Ahtanum Road … it changes to Ahtanum Road. At the tiny village of Tampico, turn right onto Ahtanum Road North Fork. A few miles west of Tampico, there will be a sign notifying you of your entrance into the largest portion of Ahtanum State Forest.

Eventually, the flat land disappeared and the road climbed into the gently rolling foothills.

The road followed a roaring, tumbling stream for a few miles. The stream surely was being fed by the rain. I would bet money that this was Ahtanum Creek … any takers? 🙂

Eventually the paved road turned into a very well-maintained gravel road.

And two campgrounds appeared: Ahtanum Campground and Ahtanum Meadows Campground. They were beautiful. No amenities, no electricity, no water, and no reservations could be made, but the forest was beautiful and the campsites were large, and many campsites were right at the creek’s edge. If one is willing to drive back into this area and take a chance on finding a spot, it sure would be worth it if you did find a spot. On the Thursday that I was here, at least 75% of the spots were empty.

 

There were individual campsites and there was a larger area for groups or for people with snowmobiles or ATVs or OHVs or motorcycles.

There are LOTS of other campsites in Ahtanum State Forest, including ones that are designed for folks with horses. Only horses at those sites … no ATVs!

I drove a few miles up and down a few forest service roads, but didn’t get far enough up any of the roads to find those other campgrounds. A very good (printable) map is online HERE.

It was getting late in the afternoon and I was starting to think about my supper. So I turned around and headed back down Ahtanum Road, heading back to Union Gap.

There were nice homes up here, some were smaller cabins but some were nice, large homes. All of them were built for serious winter weather. Almost all of the vehicles I saw parked at people’s homes here were 4-wheel-drive, not surprisingly, and pretty much all of them pickup trucks or large SUVs.

When I got back to the campground in Yakima, I discovered that it had rained there as well. Everything was so lush and green!

 

I took the photo above out my truck window as I paused a moment while driving over a small bridge, over a creek bed, near my campsite. The creek bed was “dry” this time of year, but it sure was green on this day after the rain … so pretty.

And then I was back at my campsite and my home-on-wheels. Supper would be ready in a jiffy! 🙂

So, your question might be … what does “Ahtanum” mean and where did it come from? At first I couldn’t find anything online other than it’s a word used to name a small town, a correctional facility, one type of hops, some roads, a tributary of the Yakima River, etc.

It took me over an hour of sleuthing online, but I finally came across a website that says the word is Sahaptin, the language spoken by the Yakama people. “Native Americans, including the Yakama tribe, inhabited the region surrounding Ahtanum Creek long before the arrival of Europeans. The band living along the creek, known as Ahtanumlema (″People of the water by the long hill″), were considered to be one of the more important groups within the tribe.”

It was another great day. 🙂 I have one more full day here before I head home. I’ll share a few photos from my final day in the next post.

ADDITION: I forgot to add this one map (below) into the blog above. It’s a map of all Ahtanum State Forest land. The state forest land is blue/teal, everything else is white. You can see Yakima on the very right edge of the image. It’s interesting how the state forest land, on the left hand side of the map, becomes teal-colored blocks of land interspersed with white blocks of land that are evidently owned/managed by someone other than the State of Washington. I saw only a very tiny teeny portion of this large state forest. Interesting names of ridges and such in the area: Short and Dirty Ridge, Rattlesnake Ridge, Nasty Creek Flats, Poison Canyon (gotta be a story behind that one!).