The Washington State Hiking Podcast
Welcome to the The Washington State Hiking Podcast with your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming. Along with part time co-host and guidebook author Craig Romano, she provides practical and timely seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners and potential hikers of all skill and ability levels that is practical, accurate, fun and inclusive. We cover hikes near Seattle and Tacoma as well as hikes all across Washington from the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula to the Shrub Steppe of Eastern Washington.
Jennie is a middle aged, plus sized, frequently solo slow hiker and a born and raised Washingtonian and has enjoyed Washington's trails her entire life. Craig is a trail runner and ultra marathoner who also loves the mellow walk close to home. Originally from New Hampshire, he has made his home in Washington for more than 30 years. He the author of more than 20 guidebooks covering trails across Washington State and beyond.
The Washington State Hiking Podcast
3 Fall hiking oriented weekend getaways in Washington
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Jennie shares her three favorite places in Washington for a hiking oriented fall weekend getaways to take before the snow flies.
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Welcome to The Washington State hiking podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Thwing Flaming along with my part time co host guidebook author Craig Romano, we provide practical and timely, seasonal hiking advice for hikers, trail runners and potential hikers and trail runners of all skill and ability levels that is helpful, accurate, fun and inclusive. We would love to hear from you our listeners the second link in the show notes right below the tip jar hint. Hint is our voice memo link. Please leave us a voice memo with your question and we will answer it in a future episode. Hi, everyone. Jenny, here. So today I wanted to talk a little bit about some fall one or two night getaways that are hiking focused. And you know, I think in the in in Washington State, sometimes we get to this time of year, like mid October, and you know, we know, for those of us in western Washington, that the rain is right around the corner, starting any day. And we know if we're in eastern Washington or Central Washington, it's going to start getting much colder and windier and browner for the winter, snow may be on the way in the mountain areas. You know, that is definitely we're kind of on borrowed time from now on into the fall, as far as when the snow is going to fly. And trails become a different kind of adventure. And so some of us at this time of year, I think are are tired and ready to just kind of stay home for a few months, or do day hikes close to home. And we'll have lots of content on the podcast about that in the next few months, few months, as we get into late fall and winter. But today I wanted to, you know, for anybody who wants, you know, maybe one more camping trip in or one more getaway before having to worry about tire chains and things like that, I was thinking about some of my favorite places to go in Washington later in the fall, especially when it starts getting kind of rainy, where I live in Seattle. So I wanted to share those with you, along with some hike ideas at each one, in case that is something that resonates with you right now. So the first one I wanted to mention is further away over in eastern Washington's kettle range, and in June, on June 19, it was episode 17, Craig and I talked about this area, and I know this is one of Craig's favorite parts of Washington that he spent a lot of time in and has written about in Many of his guidebooks. And again, before the snow comes, it's really just a wonderful time to get out there. A lot of the hikes with larches, places like Sherman pass are places that are have larches peaking later in October, sometimes into early November, instead of the Alpine larches, like we've talked about before, in the North Cascades. So that is a great that's the first place I want to recommend of my three. It's a way, if you live in the central Puget Sound area, Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Bellevue, it is going to be like a solid five hour drive to get over there. So it's not nothing. You definitely want to make a weekend out of it. But if you're looking for a getaway like that, getting away from an all, it's a wonderful option. The second one I wanted to talk about is the Yakima Valley area, and if you have not been lucky enough to explore the Yakima area, I really want to encourage you to do that. I'm sure that we will be talking about this area many more times in the future, just like all of Washington on the podcast, but they still have quite a bit of sun in late fall over there, a lot of Eastern Washington gets very windy and very foggy later in the fall and over the winter, and pretty cold, but you want to watch the forecast closely, but Yakima is a great place for hiking. The couch Canyon Trail is one of my absolute favorite hikes in Washington. It's completely flat along a creek. It's not crowded. You can hike up the side of the canyon and visit a winery. It's pretty cool. It's just, it's just a wonderful hike, and it has great fall color. At the end of October. Yeah, and sometimes, depending on the weather that lingers into early November, there are other hikes over there in the Yakima area, like Black Canyon, Robinson Canyon, tandem Canyon, which is kind of between Ellensburg and Yakima. Just many, many wonderful choices. And Yakima is a great food town. You're you're going to be getting apples still this time of year that you can just buy next to the side of the road. Lots of great breweries and wineries around Yakima, if you're into that kind of thing. Lots of amazing Mexican food, small hole in the wall restaurants and taco trucks and all kinds of wonderful things. So that's another one that can be really great. And then finally, the third one that I wanted to mention, you know, is kind of the whole area around blew it pass, which is another one of my favorite spots in Washington. It is really popular for hunting, and it's hunting season now. So if that's something that concerns you, that might not be the best choice for you. I have never had a bad experience hiking and camping in the company of hunters in Washington or anywhere else. I've always my personal experience has been that people are very knowledgeable about what they're doing if they're hunting and careful about other types of trail users and off trail users, but just to note that that is something that's going on at this time also. So clealm is a fun little town Roslyn, which has had a pretty big boom of a lot of people moving. There also fun little shops and restaurants, places to get a drink after a hike. If you're into that, there's quite a bit of camping around there. You can do dispersed camping in the blue Pass area. There's also several Forest Service campgrounds, both there and along salmon lassack road. Yeah. And then as far as hikes, again, the this is an area with later larches, so even sometimes into November, depending on the weather, you can still see some Golden Larch trees around bullet pass on the way to hikes like Mount Lillian and tronson Ridge and what else, the SWAC forest Discovery Trail, which is a nature trail at the top of bluet pass that I mentioned In our larch episode on September 25 that's a fantastic hike. It's about a four mile loop. It doesn't have a lot of elevation gain, great views, beautiful larch trees right from the parking lot. It is a really wonderful time over there. So I hope that gives you some fun ideas for hiking oriented getaways in Washington for late fall. That's what you're interested in next week, Craig and I have been back in the studio working on more episodes for you, and so we I'm excited to have more episodes with Craig again, starting next week, so happy fall and see you next week. You.
