I can’t believe it, but this is my last week until things start to get a little crazy! My wedding season for 2017 officially starts in 2 weeks, and I’m OH, so ready for it, but I also have a feeling this summer is going to be kind of blur. I’m so grateful for the couples who chose me to be the one to get to document one of the most special days of their lives, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world! Because of my lack of weekends that i’ll have this summer, I decided early this year that I needed to make time for some adventures for me and Raylee NOW, instead of trying to stick them in when I have a zillion weddings to edit, and albums to design. That just sounds stressful. And I don’t like to do that to myself.

Ever since last year and our adventure to Comet Falls (which you can read about here), I have had this Wanderlust for seeing all the waterfalls I can. Last year, we only made it to Comet Falls since it was the end of the season when this wanderlust took hold, so I’ve had all winter to nail these down!! There’s so many amazing locations here in Washington state, and all are within driving distance, so this is the year we’re making a lot of them happen.

Due to the snow still in the mountains, I decided last week that I wanted to trek around a little closer to home. I’m not a fan of snow to begin with, and hiking with a 40 lb pack, including a toddler inside, in the snow sounds like a nightmare to me. I did some research and found that we have a waterfall SUPER close! Just outside of Ellensburg, you can find Umptanum Creek Falls. Nothing comparable to Comet Falls, but it was a good way to get our feet wet  (literally) this year! I did a little research, found out where the trail head was (or so I thought) and we headed out.

During my research, I had seen a few people mention that because of the spring runoff, there were a few parts of the trail that had washed out. I figured we would make our way through and not have any issues. It’s a creek right?! I was wrong.

We started out trek out from a really nice trail head. You have to cross the Yakima River, which is SUPER high and moving really fast right now. That didn’t bother me, but the suspension bridge DID. Oh, man, you guys. I’m not afraid of heights, but I am, apparently, afraid of bridges that swing when you walk over water. Yikes.

This was just a shot with my DJI Mavic Pro of one side of the bridge. It was about twice that long, and terrifying! 😐

We survived walking over the bridge, and before we knew it, we were stuck between hiking over huge boulders and crossing the railroad tracks, or me getting on my hands and knees with Raylee on my back and crawling under a small bridge over the creek. I went over, and that was scary too. I’ve seen WAY too many idiots playing on railroad tracks to know you don’t spend much time on them. Even a few seconds was long enough for me.

That was just the beginning of our adventure. We went about 1.8 miles into the brush, and the trail was confusing. I found out later that they allow hunters to go up here, and it’s pretty obviously because there’s trails everywhere and you have no idea which one you’re supposed to actually be on.

After those 1.8 miles, I was stuck. We were at a point in the trail that just headed straight into the river creek. I wasn’t about to trek through that, especially since online, it said we should be at the falls by then. We tried one more route and then I decided I would take my drone up and see what we could find out that way.

We’re that tiny reddish dot towards the middle. 🙂

After checking things out from my drone, I realized that maybe we weren’t headed the right way. It didn’t look like there was going to be a falls anywhere in the near future, and I wasn’t feeling too adventurous after bushwacking our way through the willows that far. I made the decision to turn around.

We stopped for some apple sauce along the way.

The trail led me here.

See that trail right there on the right….yeah, me either. HA!

It’s always a hard to pill to swallow for me when I have my heart set on something and then it doesn’t work out. I was determined this day to see the waterfalls, but I fell short. It was just like our Comet Falls trip last year, except this year, I was WAY further from our final destination. It wasn’t until I was at the car, that I realized we were at the WRONG trail head.

Stay tuned for the second part to this adventure later this week…………………