Beautiful hike. The trail is a bit overgrown at the point of being annoying but not an obstacle.

Now is the time to hike in the Yakima River Canyon. The flowers are blooming, we saw no ticks, and the weather was warm and mostly sunny. We encountered three snakes - one western rattlesnake and two desert night snakes. There are two small wash-outs to be aware of... Most everyone was heading up to the ridges North or South of the canyon, but if you continue past the sign straight ahead for 30 feet you'll encounter the trail after the first wash out. In another 1.5 miles you'll come to a spot where you need to cross the creek, just past the remains of the old farm. Follow the sticks which have been lain across the water and on the other side you'll encounter some amazing blooming lilacs and apple blossoms.

Hiked this for the first time, with six 12-15 year olds and three other adults. Great hike, and figured out the trail such that we went in 3 miles to the last open area with room for 7 tents! Saw a couple snakes and sheep up on the ridge on south side. Did get one tick on the leg. The trail going in was not obvious in the first 100 yards... Trail tips: From the parking lot, cross the suspension bridge, go under the tracks and when you come up, you'll see the big sign saying the trail's closed 3.25 miles ahead. Walk to the right side of that sign through the clumps of grass and the well worn path appears, with the creek just to your right. About 1 mile in, it crosses the creek to its north side. Easy crossing on a couple of different logs. Follow the well worn trail for another ~1.5 miles, with the creek now on your left. It'll then cross the creek again on logs with a small camping area on the other side. Continue on the south side of the creek for another mile+ until it gets to another crossing which at this point would be passable if you want to wade; no logs here and the rocks which could be used later in the season are all under water. In that last mile+ stretch there are quite a few areas to camp, a couple large enough for this weekend's two scout troops with ~15-20 people each, and a few more almost at the end which would fit 1-2 tents max. Practice LNT with smaller groups, please! :-)

Today the Yakima Skyline trail running race was going on, but they were kind enough to not use any of the parking closest to the trailhead. Our hike didn't use the same trails as the race, so we never had to deal with the runners. If you look across the way from the trailhead, you can see that obvious trail that goes up the hill on the north side of the Umtanum Canyon mouth. We crossed the bridge, and then the railroad bridge across the creek, and then headed up that trail. The trail starts fairly steep and then gets to a section that is nearly vertical! It is so steep, the trail is nearly impossible to hike on because of how loose it is, and we had to hike off to the side of the trail. Just above that section, there appears to be a bit of a T in the trail, and we went left staying on what is more of the main trail. As we got higher closer to the top of the ridge, the flowers started to get really good, with great balsamroot, lupine, phlox, and more. As the trail leveled out, it reached an old road track, and here we turned right (north) and followed it until there was a split, and took the trail that went to the right to stay closer to the canyon. This trail would become a bit more faint and more of a game path, but it was still easy enough to follow and it eventually led to an overlook with some huge tall rock cairns built by people. We then continued on to the top of the hill that overlooks the Beaver Tail, but we didn't hike down onto the peninsula. We did see some bighorn sheep, though. We turned around here and hiked back the same way. Going down the very steep section was a bit rough, but we slowly and carefully got down, staying off to the side of the trail where the footing was better. When we returned to the parking lot, runners were coming through arriving at the finish line.

We had a fun day on this hike. There are two trails that we used. After crossing the bridge (which was neat) and going under the train tracks, we saw the trail that headed up the canyon and away from the creek. However, we initially wanted to stay along the creek. We looked off to the right and you could see part of the trail, but the path at the beginning is not work so it was less obvious. We were able to walk about a mile down this path, enjoying the running creek, beautiful trees in bloom, and the beauties of nature. Unfortunately, approximately a mile in there was a lot of brush that covered the trail. I didn't include many pictures from the lower hike, but it was pretty. We then decided to go up into the canyon. It goes quite a ways back in there. We hiked up even with the first ridge and left the trail so that we could see the view from there and then hiked back down. We had a great time!! FYI....the small children could handle the lower area, except that the path is not wide to walk side by side.