Beautiful sunny day with minimal foot traffic. No grouse as I was hoping for but several American kestrels and Northern harriers, warblers and a rattle snake sunning on the trail. Also, lots of ticks :) Trail itself isn't challenging, but the change of ecosystem was terrific.

Fantastic hike for any experience level! Today was a strikingly beautiful day in the canyon. Beautiful drive to get there, easy to find, and a very well worn trail. Would be great for kids, dogs, grandparents, etc. Best part of this trail was the fact that it branched out every quarter mile or so. You could spend all day winding and circling through the canyon. We did get a little bored near the end of the trail and decided to follow some mountain goat paths up the canyon wall. Steep, dangerous, but man were the views incredible! We actually scrambled up the entire canyon wall to the mountain top. Insane views, but probably better left to the mountain goats. Scrambling back down kicked out butts!

Beautiful drive past the snowy Stuart Range and along the Yakima River to the trailhead. The Yakima is high and fast, predicting the conditions that we found at Umtanum Creek. We chose not to cross the rushing creek and high water at ~1 mi (usually an easy hop), which would have allowed us to go deeper into the canyon. Instead we scrambled a bit on talus, explored the homestead site, looked at beaver dams, then backtracked. Inspired by a distant coyote heading straight up the ridge (sheep trails be damned), we followed an easier trail up-canyon near the trailhead, unmarked but obvious, ascending past a pretty waterfall. We left the trail to follow a track into open sage country to a high plateau, our lunch site. We were serenaded by a western meadowlark and had peeks of snowy foothills of the Stuart Range through the plateaus on the other side of the canyon. On this rare spring day of fine weather, the sun was very warm at lower elevations, the wind predictably chilly on the ridge. The landscape is still spare: little is blooming yet, and the trees are just budding. In a couple of weeks, this area should be spectacular with bloom. Birds: western meadowlarks, bank swallows, prairie falcons, redtail hawks, towhees, juncos, and a great blue heron in the most splendid breeding plumage I have seen. The show continued after we left the parking lot in the afternoon. Along the east side of the Yakima R., we sighted about 30 molting female & juvenile bighorns in three groups within a couple of miles. No lambs yet. A pneumonia epidemic has crashed the local bighorn population, and in the canyon (west side of the Yakima) we saw no sheep, so sighting these sheep was a thrill. Soon afterwards, along Rt 82, we saw an osprey on the nest, and a minute later another osprey hovering and plummeting after prey. Driving time from door to trailhead: 2 hours. In and above the canyon: about 7 miles in 4 hours, with lots of gawking.

Strange subtropical weather in Eastern Washington prevailed on our hike. The air was misty and humid, and the warmth was trying hard to melt all of the snow and ice left over from the recent cold snap. The Umtanum Canyon trail itself was covered with 6" to a foot of packed snow...not bad footing but you might bring Yaktrax. We hiked on the trail for awhile, then were tempted by the sunny and dry south-facing slope of the canyon. A short but steep scramble to us to a fine perch on a lava cliff, where we lingered and soaked up the bright warm sun. More off-trail exploration took us to the top of the ridge and down a steep user trail back to the trailhead. Even though the slope was bare of snow, slick mud made the descent a challenge. Interesting January conditions, indeed!

This was a great short hike for us and our first winter camping trip. It is very cold in the canyon as the sun does not hit the valley floor in most places during the winter. A full report can be watched on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHPBMY9Zjs