Rain, rain, rain west of the Cascades, but dry here. A great spot for a Spring hike when there is nothing but slushy snow in the Mountains.
The trail starts with a picturesque suspension bridge over the Yakima river. You have to do a little trail finding at the start as there are several trails that lead from this area and I didn’t see any trail signs. For the Umtanum Creek Canyon Trail, after the bridge, go under the train tracks, and in ~100 yards at the first split in the trail, go right. The trail has almost no rise in elevation and follows the creek with beautiful canyon hills rising to either side. (The left trail climbs up into the hills.) There are patches of color the entire way from wildflowers, and wildflowers dotted the otherwise sage-colored canyon hills. The flowers were not super showy, but quite nice. The trail is dry, not muddy, so any footwear would be fine. Though the past forest fire took out almost all of the trees, it now has a different kind of beauty, not less beauty. The day was overcast, so we did not suffer from the lack of shade. We traveled two miles before turning around, and in that time, we had two stream crossings. The first required a tightrope walk 10 feet across the stream; definitely has the potential for an accident. On the way back, we searched and there were other stream crossings near this one (before and after) and found an easier one.
One of the most surprising and delightful things was the constant birdsong that accompanied us the entire hike. I have been on many forested trails in the Cascade mountains, and this trail had far more birdsong, by far! We also heard and then saw a rattlesnake in the rocks near one of the water crossings. It was just a small one, and was 10 feet off of the trail, and very exciting to see.
A beautiful area. I can't wait to come back at different times of year.
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