Brandon over on OlympiaFJ60.net has a piece on driving what he calls “Blue Highways” (the secondary highways on the maps), and specifically a loop he recently completed beginning and ending in Yakima and taking him along the Columbia River to Vantage, Ellensburg, and through the Yakima River canyon.
Read the entire trip report at Driving the Blue Highways - Yakima to Vantage to Ellensburg.
Enjoy.
After a night of camping along the Yakima River, my daughter and I got up early, broke camp and headed to Ellensburg, Washington to meet up with the Northwest Backroad Drivers group to explore the Whiskey Dick Wildlife Area just east of Ellensburg.
After a stop for a quad iced americano and to top off the gas tank, we pulled into the Bar 14 Restaurant for the morning meet up. We were running a little late by time we arrived. Already eating breakfast were Rich (driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee), Jan and their 4 year old granddaughter Tara and Jerry our tour leader for the weekend (driving his Ford Bronco II).
My daughter and I planned a weekend of camping in between the two day trip to the Quilomene area with the Northwest Backroad Drivers group. As luck would have it, the camping trip did not pan out as I would have hoped for. But we still had fun.
After a late start getting out of town, we finally made Ellensburg, Washington around 8:00 PM on Friday night. Not a lot of time to find a camping site, especially on Friday night. I spotted some campgrounds on the Yakima River in the Washington Road & Recreation Atlas south of Ellensburg in the canyon, so we headed that direction.
This past Saturday was a typical spring day in Western Washington - “Rain Turning to Showers”. Of course, if you never lived in Washington, you may be puzzled by such a forecast. I wanted to get out of the house and do something outside so I checked the statewide forecast for Washington. The coast was supposed to clear up that afternoon and Eastern Washington was going to mostly cloudy but only a 20 percent chance of rain. Sweet, over the Cascades we go.
With no real destination in mind, my son Steven and I loaded up the dog, camera gear and some basic emergency supplies (sleeping bag, tools, water, food, etc. in case the unexpected happens) in the Land Cruiser and left our home in Edgewood, Washington and headed east on I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass.
With an actual weekend off, and knowing that I would probably soon be selling my Jeep Wrangler to buy a larger adventure vehicle, it was time for a three day Jeep adventure.
Our first goal (my son Steven and myself) was to travel from I-90 near Cle Elum, Washington to Highway 410 near Cliffdell, Washington via logging roads. I heard people talk about such a road in the past, but have never attempted to locate it.
Our second goal was to travel from Highway 410 to Highway 12 over logging roads. We would then travel Highway 12 over White Pass to Packwood. From Packwood, we would head South on logging roads towards Mt. Adams and locate a campsite for the night.
As in previous adventures, I turned to the book Washington Byways: Backcountry Drives For The Whole Family
Cascade Overland Adventure: Intro | Day One | Day Two | Day Three