Beverly Dunes Clean Up, Camp Out & Adventure
Hosted by Eastern Washington Adventures with cooperation from the Department of Natural Resources.
Sponsored by Selah Sweets
By Clay Graham / CegPics.com
On Friday November 4th, 2016, my sons Doc and Odo, and I headed out from the Eastern Washington Adventures Club House in Selah toward Beverly Dunes to set up camp for the annual clean-up. We headed through the Yakima River Canyon stopping at Helen McCabe State Park on the way to Beverly Dunes.
Once at Beverly Dunes we set up camp and waited for other to show up. Kevin pulled in just after dark. This year he was the only other person camping with us. That was alright, the four of us had a blast.
Saturday morning the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff showed up early to greet the volunteers for the Beverly Dunes Clean Up as they signed in. Doug came to volunteer. He was the only other volunteer to show up for the clean up. Around 10 AM the five of us volunteers headed out picking up trash and cleaning fire pits out. Doc found a Leatherman and Odo found someone’s drug pipe. Around 1 PM we were finished with the clean up and everyone left but us camping.
Around 2 PM we headed out with our two Jeeps to Saddle Mountains. Saddle Mountains is the tall ridge that runs along Beverly Dunes on the other side of Crab Creek. The wet end has some steep and dune. We played a little on the big sand dunes and then headed up a canyon trail to get on the top of Saddle Mountains for the view. The trail up was full of big rocks. Some rocks we could drive over and some we had to drive around. We made it up a long way up the canyon. We had to stop to see how we were going to navigate around a section of bigger rocks. We were out looking when a group of dirt-bike riders that passed us earlier had turned around. They said around the corner was a five foot wall we should look at. So we took a hike on up the trail and saw the wall. We thought we might be able to climb it with the Jeep. Still hiking, we climbed up on top of the wall to see what was past that. The trail became to narrow for a rig. That is when we decided to turn the Jeeps around and go up a different way. We headed back out and found a road that took us to the top. The view was great on top of Saddle Mountains. Click for video of the view! I took a photo of the GPS to see the difference in elevation from where we were camped down below at Beverly Dunes. Back at Beverly Dunes I took another photo of the GPS to see the difference. If the GPS is right, the top of the ridge at the big towers was 1914 feet higher than camp.
After dinner we took the Jeeps on a night run through the Beverly Sand Dunes. Our friend Kevin driving the other Jeep had some excitement when his Jeep became sideways on a hill climb. Over all the night run was fun.
Sunday morning Kevin left around 9 AM and my son Doc took us on a drive across Beverly Dunes and back. Once we got back to camp, we also headed out.
The boys and I decide to do some sightseeing on the way home. We first stopped at the Wanapum Dam Overlook. It was pretty cool place after we picked up someone’s trash they left behind. Next we stopped at Sand Hollow Recreation Area. It is a very nice place for a picnic next to the Columbia River. My son Doc wasn’t feeling well so we headed on home by running the Old Vantage Highway and the Yakima River Canyon.
This event was a very fun weekend.
Here are some photos of the weekend Adventure:
