Eastern Washington Expeditions
Wenas Base Camp 4×4 Trip
Hosted by Eastern Washington Off Road
Report by Clay Graham. Photos by Clay & Odo Graham / CegPics.com
On Thursday May 13, 2021 we left Graham Family Farm in the afternoon and headed up to Cascade Camp which is about a 40 minutes drive. We set up camp near the entrance so others could find us. That night Charlie cooked us up some tuna melts since most of our meat was still frozen.
Friday morning Odo cooked a great breakfast. Bacon, eggs, and hash browns. After breakfast we headed over past BBQ Flats and up Lookout Road to the top of Cleman Mountain. We dropped down the other side on Mud Lake Road. Down past the switchbacks in the trees a heard of elk ran right in front of the Jeep. I did not have the GoPro on. I turn it on right after and a few more ran across. I am not sure if I recorded them or not. Still waiting for Charlie to go through the footage. On down the road we saw a huge herd of elk moving through the woods in the same direction we were going. We drove along watching them until that stopped in a giant herd. I added some not so great photos below on this report. We made it down to Mud Lake and had lunch. Shelby went for a swim. The shore was deep mud under the water. She had to work hard to get out. We let Shelby dry off a little and then we headed back up the ridge the way we came. Once on top of Cleman Mountain we dropped down Mill Canyon Road and headed back to camp. That night Kevin showed up. For dinner Charlie cooked up EWE Chuckwagon favorite, Tater Tot Casserole.
Saturday morning Odo was the EWE Chuckwagon breakfast cook as we loaded up the Jeeps for the trip. Around 10 AM we headed up Hog Ranch Road. Close to the top of the ridge we heard MrWilsonWJ call us. Once we got to FS1701 we took a break. MrWilsonWJ caught up with us. He ran with us until we turned off FS1701 onto FS1712. We drove to the end of Green Dot on Cleman Mountain Road. On the way we saw dust devils picking up ash and it looks like smoke from a distance. At the End of Green Dot we had lunch. The view is great there. You can look down on Naches, see Tieton, Cowiche, West Valley, Selah, and much more down below. The view of the other mountain around is great too. Below are some zoomed in photos taken with our Canon EOS Rebel T5i DSLR Camera with 55-250mm Lens.
After lunch we backtracked Cleman Mountain Road. We dropped down Woodcamp Ridge Road, left on New Land Road, up Jones Road, right on Crossover Road, right down Milk Canyon Road, through BBQ Flats, out Maloy Road, up Audubon, and back to camp at Cascade Camp AKA Cascade Park. The EWE Chuckwagon dinner was Dutch Oven Enchiladas made by Charlie.
Sunday we did a short trip up North Fork Wenas Road, up Hudson Road, around onto and down W-5600, right on Mud Flats Road, and back to camp. We saw more elk next to us on Manastash Ridge. The view for Manastash Ridge looking down on Kittitas Valley is very cool.
Here are some photos of EWE Wenas Base Camp 4×4 Trip:
