I joined the last day of the trail crew today and oh what a great experience. The prior crews this weeksure did a lot of good hard work up there building the bridges. I met up with Mike from WTA and George from Forest Service. We ran some motorized tank style wheel barrels. After we filled in some spots with gravel and sand, Mike and I went further up the trail and detailed two 100 foot bridges and another small bridge. We also used our hand saws to cut some fallen trees from the trail. Fun had by all.

The weather has been very nice lately and a lot of the trailheads are melting out.The Mountain Loop Highway and other areas in the Darrington and Granite Falls areas of the MBSNF are still not accessible by normal routes. Some trails such as the Goat Lake trail may require parking at alternate trailhead locations which will require an extended trek in on foot or an approach on a mountain bike. The VEHICLE PROWLERS are also out earlier this seanson. The Lake 22 trailhead had sustained about (6) six break-in's in the past several weeks involving breaking windows,Heather Lake had had(1)one vandalism to a vehicle (tires slashed & windows broken),and Barlow Pass area had had (1)one break-in by breaking a window. With the exception of the Heather Lake occurrence,all have been associated with vehicles that have had belongings such as car stereos which had their removable face-places in them,cases full of audio CD's,purses and wallets with personal ID and negotiable cards in them, GPS, MP3 players, DVD players, cellular phones, hiking gear and clothing,and even a briefcase with tax preparation documents inside of it. Myself and the Forest Service Law Enforcement Officers that work in and Patrol the facilities within the National Forest,have contact with persons who have had the above mentioned items with them in their vehicles...most are out in plain view for everyone to see. This is an open invitation for anyone who might not even normally steal something to do so. These are what we refer to as ""CRIMES OF OPPORTUNITY"". The criminal elements that prowl the forests do not need an opportunity, they are already out there actively looking. Do not give them the opportunity. Please leave any items that are not a necessity at home or throw them into your pack and take them with you. Some people choose to hide them in the trunk of their vehicles, out of sight. The criminal elements have caught on to this and they know that if they break into a given number of vehicles,a percentage of them will produce "loot". Do not be a victim. Clear out your vehicle and leave a note on the dash of the vehicle which states something to the fact of "THERE ARE NO VALUABLES IN THIS VEHICLE"". This tells the criminal elements that you have actually thought about it enough to have cleaned out your vehicle and left the note to let them know that. Chances are they are mush less likely to take the chance of breaking into a vehicle that has been posted as a "CLEAN VEHICLE". Please report any suspicious persons and/or vehicles to the nearest Ranger Station,Public Service Center,or to the Local Police. Call 911 from any local phone,or contact the 911 Center (SNOPAC) from your home outside Snohomish County,or your Cellular Phone at 425-407-3970 or 3971. Cellular service is nor likely while in the National Forest unless you are at an elevated location,but call as soon is convenient. Your call could be the one that leads the police to the person(s) responsible for the break-ins. DO NOT BE PARANOID ABOUT THESE ISSUES,BE AWARE AND EDUCATED ABOUT THEM. Now get out and enjoy the great outdoors! =(:0)) Deputy Rasar

I signed up for the trail crew on this hike for next week, so I thought it would be a good idea to check it out. My Pop and I drove all the way up there to find pouring down rain. I mainly wanted to write this report to mention that there is no marking of this trail from the Mountain Loop Highway, nor is there even a sign in the parking lot. We got out of the car and investigated it a little more to find a really nice sign down a hill. Too bad it is not signed better. If you want to know how to get there: The parking lot is located on the right side of the Mountain Loop Highway out of Darrington just after the road crosses the Sauk River. It is directly accross from the old White Chuck River Road.

Daisy The Wonder Dog and I went for a short jaunt on the Beaver lake trail in the nice weather Tuesday. The trail is an abandoned railroad grade that parallels the Sauk river, just off the Mtn Loop hiway south of Darrington. The trailhead is pretty crummy, with an abandoned trailer and lots of garbage and gun casings, etc. There are some nice moss gardens, large alder trees covered in moss, and a few large cedar trees about a mile in. At 1.5 miles, the trail simply ends at a cliffy bank overlooking the river at the site of a giant washout. It would be possible to scramble through some brushy deadfall and over a large clay landslide area to continue, but I gave that a pass. There is lots of flagging along the trail denoting some kind of wildlife study in progress. The ""lake"" is a slimey, brown-water swamp that smells as bad as it looks. The boardwalks and bridges are as slippery as ice. I did get some nice peek-a-boo views of snow-clad mountains that line the Mtn Loop hiway as it heads south towards Bedal. This trail might be worth hiking if a person was already out in that area and wanted to kill a pleasant-enough couple of hours, but is otherwise not worth the drive out IMO. I've done worse hikes I'm sure, but I can't think of any offhand. There is supposed to be an abandoned ranger station past the washout, built before the railroad came through, which should be reachable from the other end of the trail. That might be worth checking out someday. Still it was nice to get out and stretch the legs, and just to see what was there to be seen.

I went looking for an easy, low level hike to introduce some Girl Scouts to spring hiking. Using the directions from Ken Wilcox's book, Hiking Snohomish County, pg. 82 got us right there.Good road all the way the trailhead parking lot. The weather was not welcoming the entire drive to Darrington, but as soon as we headed south on Mtn. Loop the rain stopped and a bright glow was seen in the sky. The trail is an easy, soft tread first along the Sauk River then away as it crosses Beaver Lake. The Skunk cabbage was just starting to unfurl by the hundreds. Good size puddles in some areas were proof to the girls that waterproofing their boots was a wise idea! The way was so easy we were at the ""Lake"" before we knew it, but headed on to ""the washout""---a great place to stop for lunch overlooking the Sauk and getting peekaboo glimpses of the high country around us. We figured we were about 2.5 miles from our start to this washout, which is huge and has 101 good reasons to stay away. Pulled out the stove and boiled up some glacier melt water for hot chocolate and decided it was a perfect spring day. A bit of mist started falling as we headed back, but since we had plenty of time decidced to check out the trail marker tags we could see across the ""lake"". We slip, slided our way across the lake's shallow area on a downed, moss covered Doug fir tree and found the beaver's logging camp. Lots of chewing activity. The trail markers were like candy in the woods, leading us through a tangle of brush, slurpy ground, and finally back across a web of smaller fallen logs. We came across a gooey blob filled with black tadpole looking specs---we left it well enough alone and figured it for some sort of amphibious embryo colony. Being the good Leave No Trace Girl scouts that we are we picked up all five pieces of litter we found---including a man's necktie,and a half filled bottle of beer...ooey the two dead mice that came pouring of it were a nice finishing touch to our spring hike adventure. A great introductory hike, and lots of cool stuff for kids (and us more mature kids) to check out.