Amazing trail!  The trail head is easy to find from the Umptanum recreation area in the Yakima River Canyon, and the trail is in great condition.  From the rec area you cross a bridge and duck under the railroad tracks and then start heading up through the canyon.  There is pretty steady incline on the way in and it gets hot in that canyon but it's so worth it at the top!!

Once on the top of the ridge, we could see the whole of the Mt Stuart range against the bright blue sky framed with a variety of wildflowers, songbirds, and sooo many butterflies.  We continued out further onto the ridge and were treated to views of Mt Rainier and Mt Adams as well!  There were only a few other people on the trail and at the top we had the place to ourselves.  Take plenty of water and definitely check this one out!

This is a great hike for exercise, spring wildflowers, etc. as others have mentioned, so I will only add that future hikers of this trail should be aware that Google Maps and Apple Maps guidance accessed from iPhones (can't speak for other phones) do not match the written directions, and will guide you to a different trailhead than the one near the suspension bridge described in the Hike Description. The most direct way to get to this trailhead is to enter "Umtanum Creek Recreation Area" into Google Maps.  

I have noticed this issue on another trail last year as well, so I have gotten into the habit of comparing the written directions to Google Maps guidance, and also reading past trip reports before embarking on an unfamiliar hike.  Hope this helps.

Today, I braved a trail that defeated me last year. To be fair, it was much cooler today than my last trip, but this time I carried an additional 27 pounds of camera equipment!

The trail was quite a challenge for me, and I almost turned around not far from the top. It wasn't so much the exertion that almost made me turn around, but how steep the trail was! I almost had to resort to crawling up the slope.

I wish I could say the view at the top was worth the trip, but the clouds had rolled in, and most of the mountains were covered. Still, this was more a hike of determination to prove to myself that I could do it than a hike to see the scenery.

On the way, I saw lots of butterflies, a lizard, wildflowers, and only a few intrepid hikers. This is definitely a hike that's great for conditioning, and on a clear day, I can imagine the view at the top would be stunning! I uploaded a 360 of the view at the top to RoundMe.com. Just follow the link at the bottom.

Spring in eastern WA has been so delicious this year that I had to go back for seconds.  The hills are unusually green this year and the wildflowers are much better than average.  Going east also gave me a chance to escape the gloomy western WA spring weather. 

It is easy to get confused when talking about Umtanum.  The most popular trailhead is off of the Yakima River Valley and there is a cool suspension bridge that immediately crosses the Yakima river to start the trail.  This trailhead is for both the Canyon trail and the North and South Ridge trails. The more popular ridge trail is the one that I took and goes up to the ridge that is south of the canyon.  The ridge trail that goes north of the canyon is very steep and slippery and not appropriate for most hikers.  Umtanum Falls is accessed from a completely different trailhead at the west end of the Canyon.  It is about a 25 min drive from the Suspension Bridge trailhead.

The Ridge trail is moderately steep and rocky for the first 1/2 mile and then the grade eases a bit.  About 1.2 miles in I headed off trail to the northwest and eventually picked up an old jeep track that is now a seldom used grassy path.  It eventually headed out to a ridge that drops steeply to the canyon.  It looked too steep for me to decend to the canyon so I pretty much retraced my route with a small variation.  On the return route I did a 1/2 mi side trip to the cliffs above the Yakima River which follows an old jeep path.  This path is easy to see when you are heading down hill on the Ridge path.  There's a great views of the Yakima River valley and the Umtanum Canyon from the Cliffs.  There are actually may other off trail options from the Ridge trail.  You can go all the way up to highest point on the ridge which is a 2000 foot climb.  On the satellite image it looks like there is an active jeep road on top of the ridge so I elected to stay on the lower and in my opinion more scenic ridges. On a clear day, I'm sure the view from the ridge top would be worth the extra effort.

I did not see any rattlesnakes or ticks.

RT 7 mi and about 1500 feet elevation gain total.   

You have to purchase a $5 BLM pass to park at the trailhead.  They do not accept Discover or National Forest passes.