Summer Hike at Umtanum Ridge

Today is a stay-at-home, take care of myself day.  It started wonderfully, with a short walk with my friend Kim to get some coffee.  We're going to a movie later.  And of course, G is invited. He's friends with Kim too. She's been so busy lately that it's a welcome surprise to find she can hang out and just have some down time. I miss her!

First, gentle face washing, then I put on some Elmer's glue for about 5 minutes. Doesn't take long to dry in this heat/0 humidity. When you peel it off, the junk stuck in your face comes off too.
Then I got out this beauty:

Collagen is good. 

The mask itself is white and looks like Hannibal Lector when you put it on.  Fifteen minutes later, my face is wrinkle free. I took a picture of the right side of my face, which has a few dark patches.  The women in my family get blotchy dark skin when we get out in the sun.  You can barely tell. No makeup, no filter. It's so dry here that when my skin isn't dry, it's cause for celebration.

I took the 15 minutes to put on lotion, put super softening gunk on my feet and meditate. I went bounding in to see G, who was listening to some smooth jazz.
"Oh my gosh. Look at my skin." He barely glances.
"You look nice."
"No, no. I just got done with an AMAZING mask."
"Yeah, I saw it."
"No. You saw the Elmer's glue. Touch my face!"
"Kinda feels soft and fishy. But you're beautiful. I love you." He gently wipes his fingers off on his jeans.

Men don't understand beauty at all.

I really needed a bit of time to take care of myself.  I'm sore! Between working out at the gym and all the hiking and moving around G and I do, I'm a little pooped.

WARNING: LOADS OF PICTURES AHEAD

Anyway, it was a great weekend. We went hiking up at Untamum Ridge. You can learn more about the ridge here and here.

If you click on the topomap, you will see that Umtanum is south and west of Manastash Ridge, which is the other steep altitude hike we've taken. We drove out a ways on Canyon Road in Ellensburg and parked on Bureau of Land Management land.  Since it was the 4th of July, lots of floaters and flotillas were passing lazy time going down the Yakima River. That's the river snaking North/South through the topopmap.  It wasn't actually a long hike, but we originally took the right fork through the canyon floor.  We saw a cleared area that's been overgrown for 50+ years with apple trees growing wild now. Obviously, someone homesteaded this canyon and/or cultivated it.  Good apples, just small. There were also the remains of a livestock fence.

It's overgrown, but it's an apple tree.  And Gs butt.

And another- only with reddish apples

And another

Love those high canyon walls

A little creek meandered down to the Yakima

They'll get bigger, later in summer

I was wearing shorts, so about a mile in we had to turn around.  The grass was really high and some brush kept scratching my legs.  Also, we encountered a couple of snakes. I am still training myself not to have a jumpy fear response, but every once in awhile I do sort of dance backwards.  I didn't get any pictures of the snakes. I fear that my readers might give up on reading if I did. Here are some flower pictures instead.

I altered this a little, but not much. 

And a little video.

On the way in, we saw a couple of big horn sheep, and on the way out, I got video of them.

And a couple of good photos.

They knew we were there, and at times moved off a bit. They weren't scared so probably they know that BLM land is closed to hunters.

We went back to the trailhead and began the ascent.
This part of the ridge went south, whereas the other canyon went west. It went up and up and up.  Here's a couple of those photos. I had to stop every 25 yards to catch my breath.  Asthma sucks.

Steep and rocky.  Joy.

Glad I did all those squats this week. 

This is a natural little bridge between the canton walls. Wildlife use it frequently from what I can tell of the trails.

Another view of the land bridge 

I think this looks like a French impressionist painting.

We didn't go much farther after I shot this video:

Think I'm going to need another hit from the inhaler.

We saw an outcropping with what looks like a small wild animal's den.  Being as many of those little critters, bobcats, skunks, cougars, and the like are nocturnal, we decided to turn around.  Besides, we hit a brushy patch and my legs were getting scratched.

On the way back down, G fell off the mountain.  That sounds way better than that he lost his footing and fell onto the mountain.  Guess it depends on how you look at it.  He's ok, but he is taking it easy.  I thought for sure he'd break his wrist or his tailbone because he hit hard and because I'm really sympathetic to people getting hurt.  A little limping down the mountain- we still had a mile to go- and he made it to the car.  Still limping two days later but this could have been much worse.  I had joked earlier in the day about having to shoot him if he broke his leg.  I shouldn't make jokes. There must be a thing called karma. We were cooling out tootsies in the Yakima river on the way back to the car.  It's nice to step into 12 degree water after a hot couple of hours tromping around in the bush.  I leaned over to move a river rock and PLUNK! My phone hit the water.  And sunk.
I put in rice, and the pictures and video transferred over to the iCloud. That's how I have access to them. Woohoo! But booooooo for my phone. I'm not sure if it's alright. We'll give it a few days.

G is really an optimist though, and the rest of the day was spent resting, popping ibuprofen, and watching distant fireworks as our nation celebrated so many years of independence from English rule by lighting things and watching them explode.

More adventures soon- where shall we go hike next? I'm open to suggestions!