Umtanum Canyon and Ridge

On this first real warm spring day this year, I drove to Eastern Washington to the Yakima Canyon and parked at the Umtanum Creek Recreation Area parking lot. I intended to hike to the top of Umtanum Ridge and also hike the canyon as far as I could but I cut the canyon hike about a half mile short. You are only allowed to hike 3 1/4 miles into the canyon between February and July due to it being a wildlife preserve. After looking at the GPS data, I hiked a little over 12 miles with about 2200 feet of elevation gain, that's counting round trips for the ridge and the canyon. Unfortunately the flowers were just beginning to sprout and have not bloomed as of 4-5-09 and the pictures my camera took look kind of blah, but the hike was great and I highly recommend it, as long as its not too hot out. I'm betting that it gets pretty hot there in the summer. Deer seen - 4, big horn sheep - 4, rattlers - 0, birds - lots, ticks - 0, people - 3 on the ridge, a horde in the canyon.