My 14-yr old son and I stopped to do some hiking on the dry side of the state as we were headed home from Kennewick. I grew up in this terrain, he had never been on a hike with so few trees. The bridge over the Yakima was a fun "bounce" and we were happy that the stiff wind died down as we ducked under the tracks and headed up the canyon.
The trail was easy to follow and when we came to the first water crossing, we stayed on the left side of the creek for a few hundred yards trying to find a dry crossing but eventually gave up. We stripped off our shoes and socks and just waded across barefoot. We saw others able to jump across at a log jam just down stream. We climbed the obvious tree on the other side of the creek before continuing up the canyon.
We felt that we were there a week or two early as the leaves on all the trees weren't quite developed and no wildflowers were in bloom. You could tell everything was just about ready, but not quite.
We spotted plenty of butterflies and small birds flitting around. The views of the basalt canyons was pretty impressive. My one complaint was that we didn't find a good turn around point/destination. We just hiked about 2+ miles up the canyon and then turned around.
It was a pretty simple hike.
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