Wildflowers aplenty decorate timeless Cowiche Canyon

It's a good thing this trail is short -- it's hard to make much progress when you're hiking with a flower guide in hand. You will want one, too; this trail, which follows an old railroad grade, is a naturalist's delight.

Though the canyon has been around for about 17 million years, you can thank the Cowiche Canyon Conservancy (CCC) for bringing this magical area to our attention. The non-profit group was established in 1985 to preserve the canyon and maintain its trails. Recently the CCC purchased the nearby Snow Mountain Ranch, where additional trails are being crafted for hiking and mountain biking. Snow Ranch is open to the public, though we didn't have time to visit.

It was a long drive to the trailhead, but traffic was light and the journey a seductive introduction to the shrub-steppe environment as we threaded our way through hills and canyons into the channeled scablands of the Columbia Basin. Though the trail is seven miles from downtown Yakima, when we set foot on the route we lost sense of time, and civilization seemed far away. Here the wristwatch seems a tyrant, not a tool to nudge you from place to place or hurry you toward the end of a long, delicious day.

Perhaps that feeling of timelessness comes from hiking through the gently folded hills that hide the encroachment of housing developments as hawks circle silently above or you listen to the sweet crescendo of meadowlarks as they dart from shrub to shrub, or the white noise of crickets singing an ancient song.

Pick up and return the brochure at the trailhead. In addition to information about the CCC, it provides a simple explanation of how the walls of the canyon were formed. Some were formed of basalt from eruptions that took place millions of years ago -- that basalt once filled the entire Columbia Basin. More recently, about a million years ago, viscous andesite flowed from the Goat Rocks and helped form the upper portions of the north walls.

Shrub-steppe plant communities have taken up residence on the slopes that border the canyon, but Cowiche Creek is lush and green, bordered by a tree- and shrub-dominated riparian zone. According to an interpretive sign, there are more than 200 species of plants -- this in addition to approximately 125 species of birds and wildlife, including yellow-bellied marmots.

We passed through the canyon in awe, admiring the layers of strata, each one a page in a storybook that only a geologist could read. Some of the rocks are rusty red, some are black, others rough abstractions of lichen and cracked faces where cream-colored alumroot has taken hold, reaching for the sun. Some walls have sheared faces while others are collections of tottering towers, stacked like broken plates.

Some of these natural sculptures are given names and illustrated in the brochure by artist Karen Stotsenberg. With the brochure you may be able to find Easter Island Faces or the Mayan Sunrise as you wander.

Through the canyon, we passed many shrubs, including masses of chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), a perennial native. We also saw red-osier dogwood, sagebrush and bitterbrush (also known as antelope brush). A few tall ponderosa pines are hanging on in the canyon, struggling to survive. Even with a field guide we were unable to identify all the shrubs -- there are so many that we were dazzled.

Rather than lose the magic of this place, we put away the guides and drank in the experience, choosing to hike at a snail's pace. We had to remind ourselves that we still needed to be on the watch for rattlesnakes and ticks in this sage-scented land.

The trail crosses Cowiche Creek eight times on numbered bridges, all in good condition. Bridges 9 and 10 are missing, but there is a bypass around those, so hikers and mountain bikers can continue to another bridge and the east entrance on Cowiche Canyon Road for a one-way trip. We encountered several mountain bikers as we hiked, all friendly and stopping to recommend other trails.

Accompanied by a chorus of crickets, we crossed bridge 8 and in a few paces came to the signed junction for the Uplands Trail, which we opted for on the recommendation of a mountain biker. The trail gains about 200 feet of elevation as it climbs out of the canyon to viewpoints and another trailhead. As we gained elevation, we encountered a variety of flowers and identified fool's onion (Brodiaea hyacinthina), large-flowered Collomia, penstemon, a variety of buckwheat and Lomatium, linear-leaf daisy, cushion phlox, showy phlox and more. Death camas and grass widows already passed have their bloom.

We stopped for lunch at an interpretive sign at a viewpoint identifying the principal plants that grow here and how they interact with fungi in a complicated life cycle designed to run flawlessly forever. Here there are views overlooking Yakima and, on a clear day, you can hike to a slightly higher viewpoint for an unobstructed view of mounts Rainier and Adams.

As we dreamily retraced our route back to the trailhead, we were jerked back into the world by the unexpected braying of two burros in a nearby yard.

GETTING THERE

From Seattle drive Interstate 90 east and get off at Exit 110, merge onto Interstate 82 east/U.S. Route 97 south, toward Yakima. Then get off at Exit 31A for U.S. Route 12 westbound. From U.S. 12, take the second exit (North 40th Street and Fruitdale Avenue). Go under the freeway through Fruitdale (outskirts of Yakima), staying on North 40th. Then in 1.5 miles from U.S. 12, turn right onto Summitview Drive, continue about seven miles and turn right at Weikle Road, signed "Cowiche Canyon Trail." Drive a scant 0.4 mile, turn right into the parking area and signed trailhead at 1,300 feet.

There is room for several vehicles and a portable toilet. No pass is required.

The trail is about 320 round-trip miles from Seattle. Allow about 5 1/2-6 hours drive time, round trip.

* Trail data: The Cowiche Canyon Preserve Trail is about six miles round trip with 200 feet elevation gain. If you include the Uplands Trail as far as the interpretive sign, add about another mile round trip with another 200 feet of elevation gain.

* Information: For more information on this trail and others maintained by the Cowiche Canyon Conservancy and other volunteers, visit the Web site www.cowichecanyon.org. See the newsletter section for updates on trail conditions and progress reports on trails at Snow Ranch and Cowiche Mountain.

Specimen collecting, camping, campfires and discharge of firearms are not allowed, and motorized vehicles are prohibited.

From the Web site you can print out trail maps and there is a link to Mapquest for more detailed driving directions to the Cowiche Canyon Preserve, other trail access points or other trails on CCC lands.

For additional information on this and other hikes near Yakima, refer to "Best Desert Hikes Washington" by Alan L. Bauer and Dan A. Nelson (Mountaineers, 250 pages, $16.95).

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