Mine was the sole car
at the Boulder River trailhead west of Darrington at 11 am on Easter Sunday. It was showering, but even when the rain relented, large blobs of snow were dropping off the trees. There were two outbound sets of tracks in the inch of snow that had fallen the previous night. The first half of the trail is in good shape. The several downed trees are high enough to walk under. The river was roaring and the waterfalls at the 1.5 mile mark were at full volume. From about the 2 or 3 mile mark, conditions deteriorate. The number of mudholes increases. In a couple of places there is a large bog right at the point where you need to climb under a downed tree. The worst spot is a tangle of logs where a tree snapped the log bridge over a small gully. Further on, a series of trees is down, each each lower than the previous one. At the last trouble spot, a downed tree came to rest about three feet above a log bridge. Only a limbo dancer could get low enough to get under the tree without falling off the bridge. These places can all be scrambled around. Previous backpackers at the camp at trails end (4.3 miles) had erected and abandoned a plastic and stick shelter. I cut the twine holding this creation together and hauled out a ball of junk 2 feet in diameter. Unfortunately there was more trash than I could take out. On the way out, the sun came out and I met at least a dozen parties before arriving back at the now overflowing parking lot. This is a lovely and popular 8 - 9 mile hike through a mostly level old forest. It is great on a spring day, rain or shine, but the upper trail is a test of your tolerance for mud and blowdown.

Trail in good condition
except for the mud, which was especially persistent the last quarter of the trip to the trail end (at the river). We hiked late afternoon and didn't get rained on at all, although the forest was wet from showers earlier in the day. The forest was lush and dripping with the recent rain, while the evening sun shone through in beams. There were three main waterfalls that were more beautiful than we expected (this was our first time on this trail). A few small peeks of snowy peaks, but the real delight of this hike is the forest and the boulder river and falls.

The hike was awsome! The
waterfall has so much water coming down it right now from the snow-melt! Beautiful! However, there are a few things you may encounter...Near the end of the trail, the last 2 miles or so, there are a few blow downs. A couple are near some of the creeks.One of wich is blocking a bridge a little with approx. an eighth of a mile left. The trail was a little muddy from the rain in the past days. It was better the second day on the hike out. The camp sights at the end of the trail are in great shape!

I went outside! Not for
fun, ofcourse, but to work. We hiked the Boulder River trail to the 3 mp without encountering any snow. Here we stopped and went to work. A log foot bridge built in '84 had been clobbered by a large (3' diameter) Douglas fir that fell on top of it breaking in two and knocking it down stream. The Douglas was purfectly postioned for it itself to become a foot log so with a crew of seven and three crosscuts we went to work flattening the log. We used our crosscuts to saw slices into the log and then knocked them out with a pulaski, sledge hammer or double-bit (the double bit worked best, but don't tell John Howell that since he carried the 12lb seldge in). In just one day we managed to flatten out some 40' leaving a 1½ foot wide tread. The crew returned on Sunday to finish the job placing rounds to step onto the bridge on either end. Hopefully this one will last longer than the last one did.