Greetings--just moved to Yakima, Washington, and in search of hiking/backpacking partners mostly for weekend adventures, primarily central Washington area but also willing to go to the Northern Cascades, Olympics, or anywhere else in the state. I'm a 50 year old Family Practice doc, out here from the Black Hills of South Dakota and excited to hike in the real wilderness of the Great Northwest!

Welcome to the PNW!

Don't be discouraged (too much) by our weather this year. This is an unusual year with very high snowpack and wet weather. Our prime backpacking season is usually a little delayed from other parts of the country, running from July-ish to October-ish, depending on where you are heading. However, when nice, this is one of the most beautiful places in the States, with temperate rain forests, alpine lakes, granite and volcanic peaks, the Pacific coast, the Columbia Gorge and so much more.

A couple of excellent resources:

http://www.portlandhikers.org/

http://www.wta.org/

another good source, nwhikers.net is more Seattle centered I believe

There are a number of Yakima hikers posting on nwhikers.net. For info, check out all three of the sites mentioned. Portlandhikers.org and nwhikers.net overlap quite a bit for SW Washington, which is basically anything south of US 12.

It looks as though Yakima's outdoor club, the Cascadians, is still active.
http://www.cascadians.org/index.htm
That would be a good way to meet people and get oriented to the area.

Edited by hikinggranny on 07/17/2011 14:08:41 MDT.

http://www.meetup.com/Sierra-Club-Outings-Washington-State/
http://www.meetup.com/fun-loving-trekkers/

There are quite a few Meetup groups that organize backpacking and hiking trips. Those are just a start :)