Split Rock, Teanaway Community Forest, 2024

 

 

 

 

 Split Rock

 

Last year we heard about some interesting rock formations in the Teanaway Community Forest and took a hike to Cheese Rock.  See the Cheese Rock blog post from 1 October 2023.  As you can see from the photo below, Cheese Rock lives up to its name and looks like a piece of Swiss cheese.  

 

 

 

Cheese Rock, Teanaway, 2023

 

But there are more of these monolithic sandstone rocks, lots more as it turns out.  After watching a couple of YouTube videos showing some of the various trails and rocks, we chose to see if we could find Split Rock which is somewhat close to Cheese Rock.  The Teanaway Community Forest is located in Eastern Washington not far from Cle Elum.  It is a new area opened for hikers, non-motorized bikes, and horses.  The parking area is being enlarged, more trails are being added, and there is a nice, newer, clean outhouse.  Because it is just being developed there are no signs or even maps with trails marked.  Bob made his own map by combining a Green Trails map and another forest map.  He added some marks to point the way to Split Rock from information gleaned from Washington Trail Association (WTA) trip reports. 

 

 

Vesper Rock slab

Another interesting rock formation is called Vesper Rock.  It is one of ways to arrive at Cheese Rock, the other way is via an old logging road.  Vesper Rock, is a sandstone slab about ½ mile long straight up, that looked steep and possibly hazardous for us.  It is not a climb but more like a scramble.  It would be a double black diamond ski route.   

 

The route to Split Rock breaks off from the same logging road to the right before it branches off toward Cheese Rock.  We started out on the old logging road looking for a 4-way junction that was supposed to have a narrow path on the right side, heading up to Split Rock.  We found it!

 

 

Old logging road

 

 

 

 Path up to Split Rock

 

Turning off the logging road at the 4-way junction is this narrow path, about ¼ mile long, up to Split Rock.  We later found out from a couple of mountain bikers that that path continues back to the bridge near the parking area essentially making it a loop trail.  We returned the way we had come up but if we do this again, we will try the loop instead.

 

 

Western Larch trees now golden

 The Larches were in fall splendor, standing brilliant gold in among the evergreens

 

This is a mixed forest area with lots of Ponderosa Pines, Western Larches, Firs, and some deciduous trees most of which had already lost leaves.  In the spring and summer Larches look like bright green evergreen trees.  Unlike evergreens they turn golden in the fall and lose their needles. 

 

 

 

Bob posing in Split Rock

 

 

Split rock is enormous, Bob estimated it to be approximately a 20 x 20-foot cube, weighing 600 tons.  It has more than one fissure with bubbles, lumps and bumps.  There is even a balancing rock on one side.  Some of the shapes looked like faces to us.  There is a path that goes all around the rock. 

 

 

 Balancing rock

Do you see a man wearing a hat on this side of Split Rock?

 

Or a child's profile on this rock?

 

A separate fissure on the side of the rock has a peek hole

 

Count for the day:

 

2 mountain bikers, 2 dogs

5 miles RT, 500 ft elevation gain

102 miles from home