Riding on the Yakima Greenway

Over the July 4th weekend, we drove to Yakima to visit family, and took our bikes with us.  Because it was significantly hotter in eastern Washington, we took our bikes out early in the morning (well, early for a holiday weekend, so around 9am).

We started at the park behind the Wal-Mart (as my dad described it), and rode south.  The path went through some local parks, then abruptly ended.  The Greenway Foundations maps seem to indicate that the path continues further south, but we couldn't find anything that looked like a continued path or signs to point us in the right direction, so we turned around and headed back north.

After a short mile or so, we had retraced our ride, and were on new ground, now following along the Yakima River (although I-5 was still somewhat close to our left).  The river was very high, like many of the rivers in Washington right now, and and moving swiftly.  The path had even been partially washed out in sections.

A couple miles in, we passed a wooden play structure that I'd seen from the freeway many times and wondered how families accessed it.  Turns out, there's no road to the playground - you have to either walk or ride to it.  I loved that!  There was one family there when we passed that had taken a break from their ride to let the kids play.

It started to really heat up, so we turned around sooner than we'd intended.  We're definitely not acclimated to the heat in eastern Washington.  We probably only rode about 6 miles or so total, but it felt like much more due to the heat.

When we got home, J's front tire was flat.  He had a big thorn, which we learned was a goathead, stuck in his tire.  Goatheads are apparently very common on the Greenway and all across eastern Washington.  Since it was a Sunday the local bike shops weren't open, but Fred Meyer had lots of bike repair gear, and J fixed his first flat.  He must have done a pretty decent job because it's still holding up.

We had intended to ride more of the Greenway the next morning, but by the time we got moving, it was too hot.  We're just not prepared to ride in 90 degree weather (yet).  We're going back in late September, and we're looking into staying closer to the Greenway, so we have another chance to ride the rest of it.  With a flat repair kit in hand, for sure.