A path to the past

ELLENSBURG -- Of all the places this mustached cowboy could pick to settle, Doug MacArthur chose to come home.

"You see so much beauty," he says, slowing his aunt's Grand Marquis in the middle of Umptanum Road. "The aspens, the cottonwoods. Look, there goes a chipmunk."

Spend a morning with 65-year-old MacArthur and you'll see why he loves this "wild country" between the Wenas and Kittitas valleys so much -- especially the 13-mile stretch of twisty, sometimes rutted gravel road once used by stagecoaches traveling between Ellensburg and Yakima.

Evergreens and sagebrush. Mount Rainier on a clear day. A valley at your feet, a red-tailed hawk overhead. And a dilapidated house that in the late 1800s served as a stop for tired travelers.

MacArthur, who lives in a house on the northern end of the route, doesn't give as many tours of this place as he'd like. But the Kittitas County Historical Museum occasionally sends curious people his way.

The retired cross-country trucker, former bull rider and amateur landscape photographer is considered the local expert on Umptanum Road, which climbs steeply out of the Kittitas Valley traversing sagebrush, rising higher into pine forests before dropping into the Wenas Valley, north of Yakima.

'This road is not exactly what you'd call a freeway," MacArthur says, sounding like he's practiced saying those words before.

In a way, MacArthur's story is as winding as the road he's photographed hundreds of times.

"I have no idea what all I've done," he said. "I'm a jack-of-all-trades and absolute master of nothing."

As a boy, he rode fences for a cattle rancher before dropping out of high school. Later, he'd ride bulls and travel the rodeo circuit. He blames never getting married on those rodeo years. He chauffeured a horse trader across the country. Sometime in the early 1980s he bought a Pentex Spotmatic 35mm manual camera, hoping to emulate the art of Ansel Adams.

The whole while, he'd listen to stories the "old timers" would tell. That's how he learned so much history.

'This here house belonged to the Sienna family," MacArthur says, stepping gingerly into the former stagecoach stop about 10 miles from Ellensburg.

"I'm an old man and I still can't fathom living this far out. If you get sick, you just can't go to the doctor's. You have to ride it out here."

The one-story house, surrounded by empty chicken coops, an outhouse and sagebrush, sits on ranchland owned by his friend, Arlen Kummer. The Kummer family owns some of the ranches -- there's not much else -- along the route.

Inside the Sienna house hangs peeling green cloth on the walls, over the creaky wood floors. In a back room, there are more recent decorations: graffiti, carved in love declarations, and a pentagram painted onto the floor.

MacArthur laughs off the Wicca tracks and says his religion is nature. Later, past a turn for Umptanum Falls and the Cottonwood Canyon, he stops to point out a busted tree that died years ago after being struck by lightning.

"That's the witch's tree," he says in a serious tone. "They say if you walk up there you can hear the witch's cry."

This reporter asks him if he wants to go sit underneath, just as a test.

"Nope. I don't mess with that stuff," he replies, and puts the car into drive again.

The road is lined with 132 numbered box nests, their roofs the same brilliant color as the wings of the bluebirds inside. They're part of an Audubon Society trail that begins at the end of the pavement on North Wenas Road, stretching to the intersection of Durr Road just above Ellensburg.

Farther into the Wenas Valley, the land is covered more with aspens than sagebrush. About 9 miles southwest of Ellensburg, you'll also pass the entrance to the University of Washington's Manastash Ridge Observatory, for instructional and research use only.

"I love this all," MacArthur said. "It's paradise to me."

Meet the old cowboy on Saturdays at the Ellensburg Farmers Market, where he sells his photography. You might even convince him to take you down the old stagecoach road. It's called Umptanum Road on the north, Ellensburg side, and North Wenas Road on the south, Yakima side.

* Melissa Sánchez can be reached at 509-577-7675 or msanchez@yakimaherald.com.

• Jobs
  www.yakjobs.com
• Homes
  www.yakhomes.com
• 
• 
  
• Autos
  www.yakwheels.com

• All Special Pubs Channels YakJobs.com YakWheels.com YakHomes.com Playdate Yakima Bride Yakima Wheels (Print) Home Buyer's Guide Baby Brag Book Graduates 2009 Summer in the Valley Prep Football 2009 Women in Business
• Advertisement