We hiked the Spray Park loop from 7/16 to 7/19, starting from the gate on Mowich Road at the Paul Peak trailhead, with nights at Mowich, Cataract, and Ipsut. The road in to Paul Peak was straightforward, with just a few potholes to dodge in the last mile of the National Forest before the park boundary. 

To get to Mowich (where we spent the first night), we followed the road and the old Grindstone trail. The Grindstone trail was a bit snowy and muddy, but shorted the distance and was a nice break from the road. About 4 miles, 1280 elevation gain'.

Mowich was socked in with light showers, so we mostly had a lazy afternoon reading. Avalanche lilies were nice. Seven of the sites (two walk-in; two wilderness) were melted out.

The next day, we crossed Spray Park. The trail was easy going to Spray Falls. We stayed on the near side of the creek at the falls with its more limited view -- while there was a doable crossing point, we judged the risk and consequences of slipping to be too great.

Back on the main trail, we reached intermittent snow around 5400' and it became more solid around 5600', though still with breaks. It was like this until upper Cataract Valley (maybe 5300'?). There were recent boot tracks that we could mostly follow, though using GPS to make sure they were not leading us astray. You would not want to do this route in these conditions without navigation tools and skills (on a warmer day, the boot tracks would have melted away, plus... just don't follow random boot tracks without checking them). Visibility was at most 300' and often more like 100'. We saw one foggy outline of a marmot and a ptarmigan.

We carried spikes but did not find it worth putting them on as there were enough breaks where we were crossing gravel or rocky trail. 

The slopes down to the Cataract valley were trickier than the ascent: lots of snow bridges that were ready to give way, some steeper slopes (some still gissadable, some tempting but not glissadable), and a couple of drifts that needed traversing. Overall, though, not bad.

We reached Cataract Camp (about 7.75 miles, 2000' elevation gain), still in the fog. All campsites, except the group site, are melted out, though some are very wet. We got a tantalizing window of blue sky around dinner time, then rain.

The next day (7/18), we headed the rest of the way down Cataract Valley and stopped at the lower Cataract Falls (on the Carbon River camp access trail) before crossing the suspension bridge. We then headed up to the Carbon Glacier viewpoint, where we spent about two hours in the fun, watching Tahoma drift in and out of clouds while a pika wandered around near us.

From there, we turned around and headed back down the Wonderland Trail toward Ipsut Creek. The reroute for the main Carbon River crossing, described in previous reports, has progressed nicely. There's a clearly flagged (pink) / cairned (tiny) route from the middle of the river, downstream, to a new series of bridges, and then back upstream to rejoin the trail on the other side of the river. It involves a bit of up and down over logs, but it's easy to follow and gets you up close views of the power of the river.

Then, it's about another mile of trail to a place where the trail goes out on an island with the Carbon River on each side. The first "real" bridge (there are a couple over logjams right before it) in our direction of travel is the 45º bridge you've seen in some other photos. It was above water, and after testing how solid it was, we decided to cross, walking on the lip of the bridge above the railing. This seemed less risky to us than bushwhacking along the river to other log crossings.

Then there's another bridge or two and then a bridge made out of two logs at a right angle. Taller bridges have nice steps built to access them. Overall, impressive work by the Rainier trails team as they work to adapt to an ever-changing river.

After that, it was an easy mile to Ipsut. We filled up on water at Ipsut Falls (a pretty, 200' detour and less silty) and headed to camp. 

Campsites were in good shape. This site was a little buggier than others, though they mostly swarmed rather than biting. Lots of deer around at dusk, many with new fawns, and all without any fear of people.

In the morning, we returned to the Ipsut Pass trail. This is in mostly good shape with lots of streams, cascades, and small waterfalls, Doe Creek being particularly nice. No snow obscuring the trail, other than about 5' shortly below the pass, easily navigated. The last bit of up was hot and there are a couple of areas where a slide has disrupted the tread, but, all navigable.Wildflowers (mostly castilleja) are a bit further along on the side.

Right before the pass we looked down to see a bear with a beautiful golden coat between switchbacks - we must have passed with 100' of it but never heard it. 

At the pass, we contemplated a side trip to Eunice Lake, but decided against it due to some other priorities for the day. The trip back to Mowich passed quickly, and then we stopped to enjoy the lakeside a bit. It was still snowy, but less so than just a few days before.

On the way back down to the road closure, we saw a mother bear and cubs cross the road not far from us. We stopped for a bit to watch them. We also saw NPS equipment on the road grading it to open, though from what we saw, it's in very good shape. On the drive out, we watched an owl catch and eat a snake.

Overall:

• Again, lots of appreciation to the trail crew on the Carbon River rerouting and bridging. 
• That said, I would not do the current Carbon River route with younger children, in particular due to the crossing at 45º or with anyone who is not confident of footing -- the few crossings mean that it's much more than the gentle river walk the stats would imply.
• I would not do Spray/Seattle Park without navigation and comfort on snow, and would carry traction and gaiters as conditions are probably changing fast. If you are going for tarns and flowers, I'd also wait at least a couple of weeks, as right now you're getting mostly snow and mud. 
• If you like waterfalls and streams, they're going wonderfully right now.

The roads not as bad as some say, just be prepared for a bumpy ride.  Fall colors are still great.  No animal sightings

The animals are out and about getting their final meals before winter really sets in!

We saw 4 bears: momma and 2 cubs, and a big male bear. We also saw 2 goats (one was huge), and 3 ptarmigans.

Fall colors are starting to fade, and I'm sure the bears will go into hibernation soon. Remember to give the bears lots of space, some bears can cover 100 yards under 10 seconds!

You can see what the animals look like in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxus7-3uWKU

Spray park is slowly shifting to fall colors and is as beautiful as ever. We hiked from Mowich Lake through spray park and up to Observation rock. 

The road is just as bumpy as always and the trail head was crowded with nearly a mile of cars backed up for parking at Mowich Lake. We saw one bear in the distance in spray park but didn't get to see the bear for long as it wandered off into the woods fairly quickly.

The trail for observation rock cuts off from the wonderland at the top of spray park. The trail is good at first but then begins to fade in and out in. As we got higher, there were patches of fresh snow at least 6 inches deep in a few spots. Though most of the fresh snow appears to have melted except in a few shaded locations. As you get higher you will need to cross glacier to reach observation rock and thus there is no trail until you reach the base of Observation Rock. There are streams running under the glacier so use caution if you intend to cross. The glaciers were firm and icy in some places but had fresh snow cover in other places. We used trail spikes and gaiters but if your are familiar with snow travel you could easily make it without those.

The view from observation rock was gorgeous and we got there at sunset. 360 photos in the links below.

Ok, so I didn't get all the way up to Observation Rock and stopped at about 7250'. I wanted to report that the Flett Glacier has small crevasses and audible water running under it, so it's probably best you have microspikes and knowledge about how to navigate an ice field in such a state. Plus, the area was EMPTY and I was all alone mostly. I saw two pairs of Wonderland hikers in Spray Park, and one trail runner and one volunteer ranger who joined me at the tarn under the Flett Glacier during lunch. Oh, and two bears feeding on blueberries in lower Spray Park.

Unfortunately (?), there will probably be a good layer of fresh snow by the end of the weekend over much of the trail from Spray Park up to Observation Rock. 

There is also an unofficial trail from the gorgeous turquoise lake under the patchy western arm of the Flett Glacier back down to Spray Park, so I cross-countried it over to the Lake from the Observation Rock trail and hiked down that trail. That trail is somewhat hard to follow at times, but is noted on some GPS apps like Gaia. This made for a nice loop and was a lot of fun to come down.