Yakima Training Center

The Saddle Mountains on the Yakima Training Center as seen from the John Wayne Pioneer Trail. Photo looking east southeasterly at Boylston tunnel.
Rail cut on the Yakima Training Center in the eastern end of the Iron Horse State Park portion of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail as it nears the Columbia River south of Vantage

The Yakima Training Center (YTC[1]) is a United States Army training center, used for maneuver training, Land Warrior system testing and as a live fire exercise area. It is located in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Washington, bounded on the west by Interstate 82, on the south by the city of Yakima, on the north by the city of Ellensburg and Interstate 90, and on the east by the Columbia River. It is a part of Joint Base Lewis-McChord.[2] It comprises 327,000 acres (132,332 hectares) of land, most of which consists of shrub-steppe, making it one of the largest areas of shrub-steppe habitat remaining in Washington state. The terrain is undulating and dominated by three east-west parallel ridges, the Saddle Mountains, Manastash Ridge, and Umtanum Ridge anticlines, which are part of the Yakima Fold Belt near the western edge of the Columbia River Plateau. Vegetation consists of sagebrush, bitterbrush, and bunch grass.[1][3] Vagabond Army Airfield and Selah Airstrip are located on the Yakima Training Center. The training center is also used by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force for exercises.[4]

Japan Self-Defense Force
  1. ^ a b US Army Webpage Yakima Training Center
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference SeattleTimesHistory was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Yakima Training Center", globalsecurity.org
  4. ^ Klauss, Nicholas (24 September 2015). "U.S. Army partners with Japanese for training at Yakima Training Center". The Daily Record. Retrieved 25 September 2017.