Trail up to the crest in great shape.   Lots of birds on the lower third, some wild flowers along the middle portion.  At the top, you reach a dirt road.  Crossed it and went to two close points w/ great views .  Backtracked and followed the road west up to a higher point with the best views.   Could see Blewett pass, and a bit of the Enchantments, both wind farms, Eburg.  On a clear day you'd also see  Adams, and Rainier.  But not today.  Poles helped tremendously on the way down.

Went about a mile up the creek  canyon trail after descending.  I have found this to be very muddy in the past, and it is nice and dry now.

An America the Beautiful pass is accepted at the parking area. 

This is a great Yakima Canyon hike.

Little late submitting this, but had a few experiences I figured warranted sharing! This trail is a great early season one to start warming up on, with a surprising variety of scenery as you work your way up and through the canyon. As mentioned elsewhere, if you're a fan of birding, this is an excellent spot for it.

First, ticks are out already; I found one tagging along on my pant leg at the end of the hike, so be sure to take precautions and check any four-legged companions for unwanted company at the end. Only snake that was seen was of the garter snake variety, but I'd expect their larger cousins to be out and about before too much longer.

The water level is pretty high and fast moving, but there are ample fallen trees to use as makeshift crossing points. A couple sections of off-shoot trails will abruptly dead end in thickets or along the riverbank; you'll want to backtrack rather than press through any thickets due to a large number of thorny bushes waiting to make any off road attempts less than pleasant.

My hiking partner and I made it a little over 3 miles up the canyon before stopping at a particularly gnarly looking water crossing for lunch and heading back.

I led my 5th Winter Walk for the Cascadians to Umtanum Canyon today.  We hiked about 2.5 miles up the canyon, then retraced our steps back to the upper crossing of the creek and climbed to our usual lunch spot above the canyon on a buttress.  It was sunny, but cold and as there was a little breeze, we didn't linger too long after lunch before we headed back.  The day started off pretty cloudy, but cleared off more and more as the day progressed.  The temps were in the mid 20s, but by being in the canyon we avoided much of the wind which was predicted.  The trail was well packed up to the upper crossing and we didn't need showshoes nor traction devices.  We saw a number of other parties in the canyon, especially in the afternoon, but no wildlife.  It was a beautiful day!

Mid 50's and sunny? Nah. Let's instead go to Ellensburg where it is 20 degrees colder and cloudy! We were in town for the CWU-WWU basketball game, but unfortunately the east side of the Cascades is under a massive fog bank. We made the most of it by getting in this small hike along the canyon rim at Umtanum Creek in the Yakima Canyon. Endless amount of game paths and old jeep tracks to hike along and explore.

We started at Umtanum Creek TH, crossed the bridge and railroad and went left at the fork to go up the ridge trail. But soon we left the trail on a path that went up the steep hill to the left. This path was muddy at the start and pretty slick, but as it got higher and merged with other paths it became a nice little trail. We climbed up the nose of the ridge to the jeep track, and hung a left and walked out to the viewpoint along the rim up ahead. We turned around and followed the jeep track around the bend and up the side canyon to the grove of woods where it meets the main ridge trail. We hiked up the main trail for about 1/3 a mile until where is begins to veer left and leave the canyon for the ridge. This is where we instead went right and left the trail, hiking XC and along the occasional game path. We were aiming back to the side canyon where the main trail comes up. We came across a more defined path and decided to hike that as it led out to the rim of Umtanum Canyon. We now had to find a new way off of the hill back into the canyon, we we hiked until we came to a steep ravine that dropped into the canyon. We put on our traction and followed a faint path down the steep ravine and returned to the main Umtanum Canyon Trail, which is solid ice.

Route: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move264343681

Beware that the Umtanum parking lot is now under full control of the BLM (federal), so Discover Passes are no longer accepted. You now have to pay a $5 day use fee or have the America the Beautiful pass (not a forest pass, as this is BLM).