I took my little Hyundai Elantra up the nine miles of the USFS 46 road and got within about 1/4 mile of the trailhead at Clear Fork. The road is rough in spots, and the last few turns were just too rough and consisted of too many big rocks for a car. We walked to the trailhead and found 6 big trucks. Two of them with horse trailers. Most likely, we had stumbled into a favorite archery hunting area.

The Clear Fork Trail is nearly flat and gentle at least until its junction with the Clear Lost Trail #76. The highlights consisted of Lilly Lake, which was more lily than lake and old growth Douglas Fir, Cedar and Hemlock.

We turned west on the Clear Lost Trail and the shelter and began hiking up the mountain. I hiked as far as Lost Hat Lake, but never really found the lake itself. What was on the trail and what was on the map got a little confusing. The #76 trail is clearly not a priority for anybody. There were a lot of trees down over the trail, but it is late enough into the season that there were established routes around or over all of them. If you are looking for alpine views of the Goat Rocks area, this is not the right trail, but the old growth forest in its most natural form is stunning!

Looks like the Forest Service has been working on road 46, which ends at the trailhead for Clear Fork trail #61 in the Goat Rocks Wilderness. The huge ruts have been adequately filled in and the road is passable for most vehicles. It's still very rough in spots and in one place the side has caved in, but there's room to get by.

I hiked up Clear Fork trail to the junction with Clear Lost trail #76, and then proceeded up that towards Lost Hat Lake, but only to about 4800 ft. Clear Fork trail has been cleared of blowdown, at least up to the junction with #76. It's rough and rooted in spots like a typical horse trail. On Clear Lost trail there are quite a few blowdowns and some of the puncheon needs repairs. It wasn't muddy enough to be a problem, though. Spotted what looked like a great blue heron on a side trip to Lilly Lake but I'm no expert on bird identification.

FS Road 46, access to Clear Fork Trail #61 trailhead, is washed out. Use extreme caution when attempting to reach the trailhead.

An excellent lush forest walk. The trail has a few fallen trees, none pose any serious difficulties. I did this hike up to the PCT junction at Tieton Pass, and it rained the entire time, so the trail was very wet. 4 miles into the hike I crossed Coyete Creek on a downstream log and camped. At 5 miles is Chemney Creek, another log is available but I was already wet so I just walked accrossed, an easy ford. At 6.5 miles the trail crosses the Clear Fork of the Cowlitz River, were a log could be used to cross, but it looked too wet and slippery, walking accross the knee deep river was easier, but very cold. At about 8 miles there is snow, but the trail is easy to follow, the last 200 ft the trail is lost but the PCT juction is straight up at the saddle.