September, 2022
My last full day here. It was a gorgeous day. I decided to head out on just a day-trip with the big white truck, north on a two-lane paved road into the Yakima River Canyon, north of the town of Yakima. The canyon road hugs the Yakima River with extraordinary geology and plants alongside and views of the river.
The big, main interstate highway/freeway (I-82) headed north out of Yakima too but was over to the east of the river with no views of the river or the canyon. I wanted to see the river and the canyon!
The canyon road (state route 821) bans commercial truck combinations (semi trucks with trailers) from May 15 thru September 15 due to the summer volume of traffic, and the overhanging rock walls, and the necessarily narrow roadways (between the rock walls and the river, and you’ll notice the almost complete lack of a shoulder or pull-outs in the videos below), and a few really tight curves and switch-backs along the road. It even bans RV’s more than a certain length.
After driving the canyon road today, even though I would have been allowed to take my 21′ trailer, I would not have wanted to. It’s just too tight and narrow in some spots. There is no shoulder for most of the road. And the drive was just too gorgeous to spend the time under tension and not be able to enjoy the views. Towhee the Trailer happily stayed back in the campsite in the campground back in Yakima … today I had just the big white truck with me and she handled these roads with not a care in the world.
The Yakima River Canyon is a 27-mile gorge through basalt cliffs and rolling hills. Eagles, hawks, and falcons are common sights. It’s a popular destination for anglers, campers, and river-rafters. Plate tectonics, glacial floods, and volcanic eruptions shaped this landscape over millions of years. Huge folds of the earth’s crust, created by the clockwise rotation of the Pacific Northwest and the compression of the North American continent, are often evident (I read that on a sign).
Online research provided this info about the canyon road … “sections of the highway are closed for day-long events that are held annually, including a cattle drive in January or February.” In fact, a full-time resident and rancher that I talked with today told me this is not a “tourist” cattle drive … it is real people moving their cattle from their ranches down into the town of Yakima for sale. Maybe someday I’ll see that.
The first video below was taken as I was entering the south end of the canyon, heading north, uphill, into the canyon.
Ok, let’s get on with our ride up into the canyon in the big white truck. 🙂
Oh, one last comment from me … I figured out a way to secure my camera on top of the dash of the truck so I no longer have to hold the camera in one hand to take videos while I drive with the other hand, and I no longer look at the video being taken with one eye and watch the road with the other eye, yikes. Of course, not that I was doing that, no sir. But, the camera is now secure on the dash so both hands are on the steering wheel and both eyes are on the road. 🙂 So you folks don’t need to worry about my driving, just settle back and watch the scenery.
There were several campgrounds and recreation areas along the river. I’ve taken just a few photos to show what they look like. And I’ve included a couple of photos of the precise campsite number of my prospective favorite future campsites. 🙂
I was here on September 18, just a couple of days past the date of the semi-truck-trailer ban, so you’ll see at least one semi-tractor-trailer rig legally heading south on this canyon road in the video below.
The foot bridge above led to a long, likely wonderful, walk up into the canyon of a small tributary to the Yakima River.
The video below shows the northern part of the canyon. The video ends with the canyon road climbing a bit uphill and away from the river, then the road drops back down to the river, and then both the river and the road proceed directly out onto the flat land to the north of the canyon. Just before the end of the video, the canyon road crosses a small waterway, Wilson Creek, which is a tributary that empties into the Yakima River just a bit south of where the road crosses that creek at the end of this video. What might seem like such dry environs is actually full of dozens of small creeks and waterways.
And then I pulled off onto the side of the canyon road, turned the big white truck around, then headed back south, downhill, southbound this time, down in through the canyon back towards Yakima.
Southbound, but near the north end of the canyon (above).
Southbound, near the south end of the canyon (below).
One last photo below. Fun with faces! The rock wall below was near the south end of the canyon. Remember the other one or two blog posts here in the last year or two where we all found faces in the rocks? This rock wall even has a whole body in it! At least I see a whole body. 🙂 What do you see? How many faces? I see 18 faces.
UPDATE: As promised to Reader Wanda, here’s a photo (below) of the rock wall (above), but with the faces that I see circled in RED … and the body of the woman holding a child (or a dog) circled in YELLOW. I now see 40 faces! See the comment below from/to Wanda with a link to a larger resolution of the photo of this rock wall that you can enlarge for better searching.
