As mentioned in other reports, the directions to the trailhead are wrong. Turn left off of Teanaway Road onto the West Fork Teanaway Road to head towards the campground (campground not well marked). At the campground, turn RIGHT onto Middle Fork Teanaway Road. Look at Google Maps. Continue after the pavement ends, past the Indian Camp, just over a bridge where the road turns hard-ish left.
Once you get there, though, you'll wish you brought your horse. The river was ford-able at the trailhead, but it was up past my knees (I'm 5'10"). Cool, but not unbearable since it was 97 degrees. My husband had to carry our dog across (Boxer). Beautiful canyon, some mud holes, then another river crossing. Overgrown trail, then a third river crossing - this is where the trail dissappeared. I THINK it continued up-river a bit, but the river was too high to get there on foot. We turned back instead. Teanaway Valley is beautiful - we'll look for another hike to try.

The beginning of the Middle Fork trailhead requires a river crossing that is far too deep and fast to cross safely. We drove down the dirt road toward the West Fork, looking for a trailhead. But we never found one so we just parked near where the road ends (blocked by huge rocks/tree stumps) and hiked down a road that was closed to motor vehicles. We found a great campsite right near the river after just a 5 minute walk. It was mostly sunny, just a little light rain around dinner time.

We picked the Middle Fork Teanaway River Trail because most trails in the area still have snow above 3500 ft.

The first thing we learned was that the directions on the Washington Trails Association are incorrect. Ultimately, we had to rely on GPS coordinates & a local store to find the trail head. For those of you without GPS, please note that the left turn onto the Tennaway Road from State Route 970 is approximately ¼ mile past the Teanaway River Bridge (not 1 mile). Continue 7.4 miles on Teanaway Road then turn left onto Middle Fork Road Teanaway Road. The remainder of the directions are correct. You know you reached the trailhead parking when you see the sign pictured below.

At the trailhead, the snow melt has transformed a puddle hop into a 2.5 foot wade through 45 degree water. Once you forge the river, the trail quickly becomes a beautiful canyon with wildflowers blooming all around. The tail is clear for approximately a half mile until you run into the river again. The river crossing is deeper than the trailhead and I would not recommend attempting to cross until water levels fall. In short, unless you are on horseback, I would recommend holding off on this hike until mid-July when water levels have abated.

I led a Cascadian backpack to the headwaters of the Middle Fork Teanaway River Fri-Sun. This was an exploratory trip because I had never been in this particular area before & the only info I had was that the packers from Camp Wahoo had an established camp in a meadow beyond the junction of the De Roux Cutoff & Middle Fork trails. I was hoping for other meadows with nice campsites farther upstream. We started at the Boulder-De Roux trailhead and then took the De Roux Cutoff trail to the saddle below Koppen Mtn where we had lunch. On the way up we met a string of horses with about 10 young teenage girls and their counselors returning to Camp Wahoo from the Middle Fork. After lunch we dropped down to the Middle Fork Trail and made our way up towards the saddle between the Middle Fork & Big Boulder Creek. After a mile or so we came to a big canvas wall tent pitched in the trees at the edge of a meadow – obviously the packer’s camp. This was a nice spot right below De Roux Peak and we spent some time searching for an out-of-the-way corner where we would not be invaded by the packers if they showed up, but couldn’t find anything, so we continued on. After a quarter mile or so we came to a nice stream in an open area & began looking for a campsite. We probably spent 2 hours scouring the area for a nice bench or little meadow, to no avail. I probably climbed some 300’ above the trail checking out every possible bench. We then walked up the trail to the saddle hoping there might be a campsite there, but the ridge is too narrow. In the end, the nicest place (& the only established campsite) was the meadow with the wall tent. The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we climbed the steep meadows above camp to the summit of De Roux Peak. It took a little over an hour. As with any peak in this area on a clear day, the views are spectacular: Rainier, the Dutch Miller Group, Mt Daniel, Hawkins Mtn, Ingalls & the Stuart Range, Iron & Earl, and Koppen, Malcolm, & Jolly to name a few. After a couple of hours on the summit, we descended the SW Ridge of De Roux to the trail at the saddle between the Middle Fork & Big Boulder Creek and made our way back to camp. We were back by about 2:00 and spent the rest of the afternoon just puttering around the meadow. The next morning we packed up about 11:00 & were out to the car about 1:00. The weekend was sunny and quite warm and both nights were very windy. There were some nice wildflowers, especially Arrowleaf Balsamroot & Bluebells (Mertensia sp). Much to my surprise (& delight) the horse camp was almost immaculate & we were not bothered by critters trying to steal our food. There were a few bugs in the evening, but they were not especially bothersome. Once we were in the Middle Fork drainage, the only other people we saw were a couple of ladies on Sat who had camped farther downstream and were day hiking to the saddle between the Middle Fork & Big Boulder Creek. This was a nice trip, but in my humble opinion, given the number of other really great locations in the Teanaway, this is not a prime backpacking destination, especially for 3 days. The campsite is not especially scenic compared to others in the Teanaway and, other than climbing De Roux, there really isn’t much to do or places to go.