The White Chuck Bench trail is a beautiful walk in the woods along the White Chuck River. Unfortunately it peters out about half way along and the second half of what is hikeable is deteriorating and getting overgrown.

The trail starts off a small forest road above the White Chuck boat launch. Go south on the Mountain Loop Highway from Darrington to a sign for the boat launch on the left. Cross a really impressive strong bridge to a junction. There is parking and outhouses at the boat launch area. Go up the dirt road to an upper parking area and signs for the White Chuck Bench trail.

The trail starts out with a good tread winding through a pleasant forest of tall trees. It skirts the ledge above the White Chuck River, crosses a sturdy wood bridge, and continues upstream. Occasionally one gets a peek at Mt. Pugh which is still domed in snow. There are several nice overlooks if you step off the trail a short way.

After about a mile or so, the trail descends gently down to river level and then it gets lost in underbrush. Not much altitude gain or loss on this path. Green Trails map 111 shows this trail going 6.6 miles to connect with the White Chuck road which apparantly skirts the left bank of the river.

 Started out on the trail at about 10:15am. There were a few spots of patchy snow, but it looked recent and was melting quick. Spring is in full swing here with wildflowers and greenery popping out everywhere. There were quite a few blowdowns and a lot of windfall. The dog and myself only went about 2 miles and the trail was getting pretty grown over. It would not take much for a trail crew to clear this trail, I know there was a lot of damage from the 2003 floods, so I do not know how hard it would be to clear it to the White Chuck road. There were peeks of mountains and you could hear and sometimes glimpse the White Chuck, but the part of the trail I was on did not go near the river. Was back at the car at a little after 12:00pm and headed out to the Old Sauk River Trail. The weather was warm and clear, a great day to be out exploring.

After several "mud fest" hikes in the past couple of weeks, this one turned out differently. The Mountain Loop Hwy out of Darrington had been plowed but there were only narrow travel lanes as we headed for the White Chuck Boat Launch road. My poor little Honda slipped and slid towards the one lane bridge and I called a halt to the driving at the "day use area" at the boat launch. Only boys with big toys had continued further towards the actual trailhead.

There were no recent reports and the ones that did exist declared problems with the trail. There was up to 6 inches of snow on the road up to the trailhead but 0 to 4 inches on the trail itself. The trail was easy to follow for the first 2.5 miles or so and then only flagging and a sketchy boot track for the next .5 miles. This led us down to the rivers edge and a nice break area. My GPS showed a trail continuing onward to Dead Duck Creek and beyond but I never found it. Cairns led us along the river for a ways and then the brush closed in and the river was running high.

I guess I will have to come back and start at the opposite end of the trail to see where I made my navigation errors. It turned out to be a short hike but at least it was not a mud fest.

There were gorgeous views of White Horse back at Darrington.

There aren't many current reports on this trail so we weren't sure what to expect. We were pleasantly suprised. While the trail is overgrown in many spots and there are some downed trees to climb over, this hike should be no problem for older children. I would hesitate to bring younger children however, because footing will be an issue. The trail is mostly rocks and tree roots. It's currently covered in fallen leaves making it difficult to see exactly what you are stepping on.

The trail follows along above the White Chuck River. At times, you can just hear the river and at times you can see it too. There are a couple spots along the way that provide a nice vista of the river, but I didn't see any good spots that lead down to the river bank. At about 1 mile there is a picturesque little bridge that crosses over Black Oak Creek. Take care, the bridge is quite slippery.

About a mile after the bridge, the trail becomes more difficult to determine. We hiked about another 1/8 of a mile and decided it was best to turn back at that point. I did notice tree markers (pink ribbons) that followed along the trail so that was helpful in navigating the way back until the trail became clearer.

We didn't see much wildlife other than the occasional bird. We did see a small black mouse. He was too fast to get a picture of though. But the kids enjoyed watching him for the short time he stuck around.

We're looking forward to next week's hike. To see more about this hike visit http://1retromama.blogspot.[…]nch-trail-731-mountain.html .