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It was a hard day.
After a breakfast of oatmeal and cowboy coffee, we carefully paddle towards the Wapato Diversion Dam. At
this water level, the map has proven to be good enough and we find an easy and safe landing on the island that splits the dam in half. The Wapato Dam is another dangerous overflow dam, only a few feet high, but with a powerful "keeper" hydraulic on the downstream side that will keep swimmers in the backflow until they are long dead. 
The portage is an easy 200 yards back to the river-right channel, putting in below the Yakima Nation fishing platforms, a beautiful spot. About 4 miles later we approach the Sunnyside Diversion Dam, the most dangerous piece of crap dam that I have ever come across.
Hilarity ensues.
There is no warning sign.
There is a long island upstream of the dam.
We have guessed from maps that we will portage on river-right.
We pull out in swift current about 200 yards upstream of the dam.
It is brushy.
It is really really brushy.
We try to break brush to clear land south of the river. The wild roses smell wonderful as their thorns shred my forearms. We backtrack to the canoe. We try to break brush downstream, getting stopped after about 100 yards. We return to the canoe. We ferry (angling the canoe in the current while paddling upstream) to the island. We line the canoe down and around the island and then ferry the left channel to an easy landing on river-left. We scout the left shore for a portage. After walking downstream for a half mile, we find that there is no legal or safe way to return to the river due to a big unbridged irrigation canal. This is a piece of shit dam for sure. We ferry back to the island, we line and wade around the bottom of the island again. We will ferry back to river-right, hug the bank and eddy out into slack water just above the dam. I hate this plan. There is a narrow channel leading into the river-right bank 100 yards up from the dam, and as we ferry I realize that we can get into it, so we do. We get out and find that it is about 30 yards of not too bad brush to reach a dirt road. From there it is an easy 200 yard portage back to the river.
Even better, Mike has begun to show his stuff. With limited canoe experience, he shows himself to be a natural, doing what I tell him to at an instant and doing it correctly. I explain the "whys" when we get time. 
We have a good laugh with the Yakima that have been watching us from below the dam for the last 3 HOURS. Below the dam, the river is beautiful with a very wild and natural feel and appearance. The current is swift and the channel splits and braids some as we pass through a broad floodplain with only rare sightings of anything man made. Especially strange since we can hear I-82 at times.
Near mile 100, it gets dangerous. There are hundreds of sweepers (trees hanging low over the water) and strainers (rootballs, trees and logjams that would trap a swimmer) during the next several miles. The turns in the river are swift and blind. We get out and scout dozens of riverbends and line or wade most of them. When we're not walking, we're paddling or coasting in the shallows in the slowest currents and on the insides of bends where we can stop easily. I misread one corner and we are flipped by a sweeper and we get a short swim with a fully loaded canoe. Mike's camera is wet, so I am the photographer from now on, and there aren't many photos on this stretch because there is no time to do so. Soon, we come to a large island where the main channel looks like pick-up sticks. We scout and find an easy
portage across part of the island, but take one last look at the ugly little channel to the left, which turns out to be not so ugly, and we pass that way with only 25 yards of lining around a logjam. At about 5:00 pm we pull out an make camp on a nice gravel bar where beaver have recently downed a tree. I am brain tired of being constantly alert and engaged in route finding.
For all of its danger, this stretch was really beautiful and wild. We saw dozens of white pelicans, and commented to each other that we had never been out of sight of some type of large bird.
In nine hours of paddling, we have covered only 12 miles. The last seven miles has taken 4 hours. We figure to be near mile 96.
Flow rates for this day from the Parker (Sunnyside Dam) gauge - 1500 to 1000 cfs.
Class I rapids, sweepers and strainers in swift current, blind turns, route finding on braided channels. Danger level should be highly dependent on river level and flow rate. Self reliance, risk assessment, and an ability to read water is absolutely necessity. You will probably see no one else and it is usually a long hike to help. I also recommend that anyone thinking to portage the Sunnyside Dam should probably prepare for a half-mile to mile portage on river-right - but no guarantee on that - get out while you can.
The Yakima River runs east about 180 miles from the Cascade Range of Washington State to the Columbia River at the city of Richland. Parts of the upper 50 miles are frequently used by rafters, fisherman and floaters, but we found almost no information on major portions of the lower river nor did there seem to be any written record of anyone canoeing the full length, although, someone must have done this before - it's too obvious of a route. Today's photos by Mike Plahuta
Mike and I set out just before noon at Ringer Road near Ellensburg, 148 miles from the Columbia River. We know what is ahead for the next 20 miles. From here, we paddle through the last of the Ellensburg range country, the river banks lined with trees with open land beyond. Soon, we enter the Yakima Canyon with its 1000 foot high hillsides, a combination of rocky land with the barest of vegetation, basalt outcrops, castles and cliffs, and river banks with straggly trees if any, but with beautiful patches of tule reeds. 
The current is moderate and the bends in the river broad so that we can see well ahead of us. Occasionally, we pass through some standing waves that are just large enough to splash a little water into the canoe. We see eagles and magpies, a few kingfishers, many red wing blackbirds, some yellow song birds (warblers or goldfinches?), some mule deer and Mike spots a handsome western tanager with its yellow body and red head. Our first portage comes at the Roza Diversion Dam. It is a low, but dangerous overflow dam that diverts water to an irrigation canal. The portage is safe and easy on the river-right bank just upstream of the dams warning sign. It is an easy 250 yard carry back to the river below the dam. 
We have no information on this next section of river so we move ahead alert and with caution. It is quite beautiful with basalt cliffs running directly down to the water. The river alternates between flat slow sections that are a few feet deep and steeper fast stretches with only six inches in water where we frequently feel the cobbles bump the bottom of the canoe. The bottom is paved with basalt rocks and unlike many rivers, it is uniform in depth from side to side. Soon, the canyon opens up into a more arid eastern Washington and the cliffs are replaced with outcrops and brushy riverbanks. Here, the water becomes more challenging. The rapids are minimal, but some of the bends are quite sharp and quick and accurate maneuvering is required to keep from piling into the cut banks, banks that would make it difficult to exit the river in the event of a spill. We hit some larger standing waves that splash small amounts of water into the canoe.
As we near the city of Yakima, the current picks up speed and when the Naches River enters, the volume of water really increases while the water temperature drops 10 degrees or more due to the snowmelt water. We pass an eagle nest, we see ospreys, herons and the first white pelicans. We have permission to camp in the rough at a state park along the river, but cannot figure out where it is. Around 8pm, we know we have missed it by a mile and pull the canoe into a small channel on river-left where we find a nice spot to camp. 
While we can hear I-82, it would be miles of walking and wading for anyone to reach us. It is a good spot. Pelicans fly past often and a hawk calls repeatedly from a nest just upstream of us. There are also many common mergansers around, with their newly hatched ducklings.
We are somewhere near mile 111 - distance for the day, about 37 miles The Ellensburg-Roza Dam section is beginner-intermediate water at this water level - Umtaneum gauge 2400 cfs. The Roza-Yakima section is intermediate paddling - Below Roza guage 1300 cfs
We put in on Portage Bay, next to the large dead beaver that has been floating here for a week and under cool gray skies with wind that puffs and buffets, always changing speed.I show S the beaver scent mounds along the sides of the east channel of the burial island. There are about a dozen now with several new small ones. Two of the big ones are ripe with the smell of castoreum, which we both agree smells better than a lot of perfumes that people spend money on. A few mounds have golf balls inserted in the piles (strays from a nearby driving range). Then we head into the east marsh so I can show her the marsh wren nests that I've found. The movement of the floating island surprises her, although the wind storms of the last two days haven't moved it any farther. It looks like it has found a stable position. The goose nest in this area is abandoned, one egg left unhatched, but it looks like the others did hatch. The irises are near full bloom, adding yellow to the marsh.
We paddle up the beaver canal by the 520 lodge, a place few others go and one of my favorites. It is a marsh turning to meadow, a place where the cattails have built enough ground for grass and sedge to grow with the cattails ever moving out on the border building land. The marsh protects from the wind and it is at least 10 degrees warmer here. S lays back on the thwart for a break and soaks in the warmth and life of the marsh while a wren serenades us with science fiction robot sounds from a hidden spot not far to my right. The red wing blackbirds are very aggressive today chasing all other birds, even herons.
I put in on the big lake on a cloudy and humid day with a moderate SE wind. On and off it rains some, weather that I find desirable as summer nears - the toy ships melt in the rain. I have a new birch paddle in my hands today and it feels good, although I might like to have a bit more area on the willow leaf shaped blade. My cherry beavertail works better in today's waves.The clouds are moving quite fast. There are no ducks on the big lake. The buffleheads have gone north and the mergansers, which gathered last year in a flock in Union Bay, seemed to have left without my noticing - they are just gone. 
As I round the floating island, I hear a strange bird call and spot something I do not recognize being pursued by a redwing blackbird. Possibly, it is a green backed heron, but I do not know why a blackbird would need to chase one.It rains a bit, stops, rains some more. It seems a melancholy day and I just sit. And it starts to rain light, then a little more. Then the sky opens and dumps water with a fury that is lacking only in thunder and lightning and for several minutes the distance disappears in gray. It is wonderful.
A sunny warm day comes again. David meets me at the house and we portage down through the forested Interlaken Park to Portage Bay. We paddle over to take a closer look at the second beaver lodge, and then return to the put in to look for David's missing sunglasses. An immature eagle sits in a tree overhead and we notice a large dead beaver that had been just feet away from our launch point. No sunglasses found, and we head off through the "Crossing Under Place" and up the west islands, across the north shore and marsh and into the NE lagoon. Lot's of turtles out sunning today on drift logs and we see bald eagles a few times. There are also quite a few new ducklings about.
Then we paddle down the E shore, talking about what fine studios the boat houses would make, and what eyesores they must be for the neighbors... the ongoing pissing match for views and the disregard for anyone else's view. As usual, lots of gardeners enjoying the lakeside properties.
We paddle a beaver canal into the core of a section of the E marsh, a spot I like to sit where the cattails continuous yearly build up of fallen leaves have built enough soil for sedges to grow. It is the beginning of a meadow, the next step from the bog and cattails. Almost no one knows that it is here because they only see the tall outer rampart of cattails. We back out through a brief odor of death, the source of which I have not found on the last few trips, but its there and whatever it is doesn't drift.
The trees are dropping fuzz on the water and it looks like a dusting of snow on clear ice.
We startle a man sitting near the shore... he reminds me of something that I wrote about finding wilderness. The man is in the wilderness, he is not a traveler knowing where he is going, but lost, at least for the moment, as he fumbles trying to find a vein in his arm for his needle. Such is urban wilderness. At least I did not smell death.
When we take out, I find David's sunglasses precariously perched behind me on the end of the canoe.
My friend, Karen, joins me today. The day is too nice for me, sunny and well into the sixties. We make the portage east down to the big lake. Karen is studying landscape design and is particularly interested in eco/site restoration, so a lake view of how people use and sculpt their property is interesting, for both of us. I point out the lack of wildlife on the big lake due to the sea walls and removal of any native plants from the manicured lawns, and we discuss the amount of money that these properties cost and I point out that I almost never see the owners, of any of these waterfront "retreats".
When we get to the big lodge, we find Liz, removing Japanese knotweed from the shoreline. This is the same street end I mentioned in an earlier post. We land and Karen tours the area and talks plants with Liz.
Beaver Bonsai
From there, we head into the marsh and I point out other beaver lodges, canals, and scent piles, and 3 marsh wren nests (I found two more today). We just paddle the bay. Fortunately, Karen can hold up my end of the conversation and I can hold up her end.
It rains throughout the night and into the morning, but by the time I begin my portage to the lake the day is just cool and cloudy with a light breeze. I circle the south end of Portage Bay, the high water letting me paddle up next to the cattails where it is only 3 or 4 inches deep in winter. I decide positively that the brush pile that I've seen from a distance on the west shore might be a beaver lodge, maybe. That would be 8 lodges in the area, if it is so. It does have tracks on the side, but the branches on top of it don't quite look right. It may be a bank burrow that has become a lodge. 
In Union Bay, I head up the west side and find the rockpile nest attended, but both of the Broken Island nests are abandoned. I think that they have been raided as I remember that it should be a few more days before their eggs hatch. The rain has washed any yolk or egg white evidence away.
Carp are spawning now and the water near the shore churns quite often as they splash and swirl. I see one that might be 30 inches long and most of them are what I consider to be big fish. At the mouth of the NE lagoon, a female mallard swims with seven ducklings that seem to be almost two weeks old. They are surprisingly large since they are the first ducklings that I've seen this spring. The goose nest in the lagoon is still occupied.
It is a wonderfully peaceful day as I cross the bay south to the east marsh. The sun and warmth of the last two days would have crowded the bay with toy ships and rental canoes, so I look forward, as summer nears, to days with rain and clouds because I do get the lake pretty much to myself. I GPS the floating island in the east marsh, but it is pretty much in the same position as two days ago. I spot one of the eagles on a branch up above the south nest. It is easy to see, even from 500 yards. Then I skirt the edge of the east marsh bay to look for bird nests in the cattails, for no other reason than because it is a challenging game. 
And I think that it is so nice to paddle alone. As much as I enjoy the company of another, my thoughts run freely when I am alone, and I can write those thoughts down, and I can share those thoughts, and that rarely happens when share the canoe.
The portage is an easy 200 yards back to the river-right channel, putting in below the Yakima Nation fishing platforms, a beautiful spot. About 4 miles later we approach the Sunnyside Diversion Dam, the most dangerous piece of crap dam that I have ever come across.
We have a good laugh with the Yakima that have been watching us from below the dam for the last 3 HOURS. 
portage across part of the island, but take one last look at the ugly little channel to the left, which turns out to be not so ugly, and we pass that way with only 25 yards of lining around a logjam. At about 5:00 pm we pull out an make camp on a nice gravel bar where beaver have recently downed a tree. I am brain tired of being constantly alert and engaged in route finding.
