Yakima Valley trip Easter 2007: Day 3

So we had a solid first two days biking between wineries, but Sunday we decided to go hiking east of Yakima "to do something"... Of course we assumed if we started driving towards the mountain we'd at some point find something obviously interesting to do.

On our way East towards Rainier we saw a national park visitor center. Of course since it was Easter Sunday there was nobody there to give us an idea of a good hiking trail, or something else to do, so we read the pamphlets, and maps within the center to try and find a trail.

Outside the visitor center:

We didn't see much interesting, so we took a photograph of the topographic map on the outside of the building and decided to go check out Rimrock Lake. It looked like Pinegrass Ridge would have a decent view, so we decided we'd try and find it, and see what kind of trail would lead up to it...

Picture of the map we were using for a reference:

As it turns out, there was still snow at this elevation. Lots of snow... The parking lot was blocked by snow, so we knew we were likely going to get wet feet during this hike.

Shawn and myself starting off on the trail:

It turns out that after we reached the ridge we found out that there really wasn't a good view, so it wasn't really worth the hour of trudging through the snow to get there. Given it was Easter Sunday Cheryl decided to bring up a chocolate bunny for a post hike snack.

Shawn ready to pounce on the chocolate bunny:

Cheryl decided she wanted to leave a Happy Easter message to anyone that was as ridiculous as us. I don't think anyone else will see that message for some time given how remote and ridiculous the hike was, but you have to hand it to her for putting in the effort.

Cheryl's Happy Easter message:

After getting back down to the bottom of the trail both Shawn and Megan were trying to decide if they wanted to plow through back to Seattle, or spend the night back in Yakima. They were checking out the map to see how much distance they would still need to cover.

One the way back Shawn and Megan ran into a herd of elk...

And back at the hotel Cheryl and I opened a bottle of the Kiona Cab/Merlot we bought at the safeway (cheaper than they were selling at the winery). Cheryl wanted to try out her birthday present from Henry and Trang (a wine and cheese travel kit), so we bought some Gouda and crackers, and uncorked the wine. For $10 the Kiona Cab/Merlot blend was a steal. So nice.

Cheryl preparing the snack:

Turns out Shawn and Megan decided to come back to Yakima, so we had one more day to hang out with them. They helped us finish off the Kiona, and also brought along a bottle of their own - it was safeway's last Kiona Cab/Merlot unfortunately.

Anyhow, we were going to go out and watch 300 in Yakima, but I realized I had to patch 4 tires, so I wanted to do that before going to sleep. I found a few extra holes in my tires from the puncture vines, so I came close to depleting my tire patches.

One more post left for the weekend. Stay tuned...