Bear Canyon

Eastern Washington

» Wildlife viewing and recreation areas of Eastern Washington

Bear Canyon, Washington Bear Canyon offers a streamside walk along an old road, in a shady green canyon with dry oak side valleys surrounded by semi-arid hills. The canyon teems with life, seeming abuzz with wild things searching and mixing, and hunting, with their young quietly struggling to find their niches, beat the odds, and live.

In the canyon, field crickets softly chirp, butterflies take wing at the approach of hikers while lizards and ground squirrels scurry off the trail to rustle through dry leaves and underbrush. Birdhouses mounted on trees along the trail are inscribed with affirming words like Honesty, Charity and Trust, turning a visitor's thoughts to virtures.

Located a short drive up the Tieton River from Naches, Washington and its surrounding fruit orchards, the Bear Canyon trailhead is set in a grove of Oregon white oak in the Oak Creek Wildlife Area. The trail is an old gravelly road that was washed out in too many places to fix, and is slowly being reclaimed by competing plants. The trail runs three miles before linking up with a road up top that branches out in different directions. The trail and surrounding checkerboard lands were recently acquired, with the Nature Conservancy and Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, the Wildlife and Recreation Program, the Washington State Legislature, the Governor and Yakima County Board of Commissioners all working together to preserve it.

Little hiker in Bear Canyon In early spring, look for a variety of wildflowers including desert parsley, arrowleaf balsamroot, ballhead waterleaf, stream violet, silky lupine and death camas, flowering shrubs like western serviceberry, wax currant, bitter cherry and chokecherry, and butterflies such as spring azure, western pine elfin, sara's orangetip, mourning cloak, satyr anglewing, california tortoiseshell and the oak-dependent propertius duskywing. Later in the season and in summer, look for orange columbine, indian paintbrush, penstemon, mint, stonecrop, wild forget-me-not, phlox, silverleaf and threadleaf phacelia, and butterflies such as zerene fritillary, anicia checkerspot, and western tailed blue. Trees include Oregon white oak, ponderosa pine, inland Douglas fir, and black cottonwood.

Scurrying reptiles include western fence lizard, southern alligator lizard, and the odd western rattlesnake and small mammals might include Beechey ground squirrel and yellow pine chipmunk.

For more information about this region of the state, read about the Wenas Wildlife Area, L.T. Murray Wildlife Area, Oak Creek Wildlife Area, or visit excellent related sites listed at the left of the page.