Lower Wenaha River 4-26-19
Posted: May 3rd, 2019, 6:59 am
As part of my multi-day excursion to the northeast part of the state, I ventured up to Troy and hiked the Wenaha River Trail as far as Crooked Creek, which with the waters running high and swiftly, is as far as you can go on the river trail in the spring anymore: The bridge here was incinerated in the 2015 Grizzly Complex Fire.
This is an undulating walk interspersing lush and brushy flats on the river with cliff traverses and passages along open slopes blooming with balsamroot, desert-parsley, and brodiaea. You start out just above Troy in the Wenaha State Wildlife Area, pass across a section of private land, and then approximately 2 ½ miles later finally enter the Umatilla National Forest.
It’s four miles from the National Forest boundary to Crooked Creek, which is just inside the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness. I saw bighorn sheep on the rimrock across the river closer to Troy. Also, at the Mill Flat Campground on the west side of Troy, the Wenaha Muzzleloaders were having their convention, blasting off loudly and sending up great puffs of acrid smoke.
Otherwise, it was a quiet hike, with lots of wildflowers to admire. Some gabion work has been done on the trail fairly recently. The Grizzly Fire scorched the valley, so the flats next to the river, while quite brushy, are now unshaded and dominated by blackened snags. There were several trees down across the trail, none presenting serious issues and only a couple necessitating an off-trail detour. Trail groups come down from Spokane to log out the trail – this year’s parties have not arrived yet.
This is an undulating walk interspersing lush and brushy flats on the river with cliff traverses and passages along open slopes blooming with balsamroot, desert-parsley, and brodiaea. You start out just above Troy in the Wenaha State Wildlife Area, pass across a section of private land, and then approximately 2 ½ miles later finally enter the Umatilla National Forest.
It’s four miles from the National Forest boundary to Crooked Creek, which is just inside the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness. I saw bighorn sheep on the rimrock across the river closer to Troy. Also, at the Mill Flat Campground on the west side of Troy, the Wenaha Muzzleloaders were having their convention, blasting off loudly and sending up great puffs of acrid smoke.
Otherwise, it was a quiet hike, with lots of wildflowers to admire. Some gabion work has been done on the trail fairly recently. The Grizzly Fire scorched the valley, so the flats next to the river, while quite brushy, are now unshaded and dominated by blackened snags. There were several trees down across the trail, none presenting serious issues and only a couple necessitating an off-trail detour. Trail groups come down from Spokane to log out the trail – this year’s parties have not arrived yet.
The creek should be easily fordable once the flow has subsided a little bit, but one will have to catch the now preciously short window of time between the post-melt and pre-scorcher season.