It was a warm day in the upper 70s when we decided to hike the Beaver Lake trail. Plenty of parking at the trailhead including a bathroom. The trail is fairly easy, with a bit of history of the area, and at the beginning of the hike you can see where the trains once made their way through. There was a nice breeze blowing through, and the river is alongside you most of the hike. We only ran into two groups the entire trip. 

As mentioned in other trip reports…watch for stinging nettle! We ran into a meadow of them but my friend (who worked for the forest service), was able to knock them away to open the trail up a bit. It didn’t take too much time. We did get caught by a couple of them but my friend was prepared with Benadryl cream!

Unfortunately, the trail was cut short at the bridge a mile or so in due to a fallen tree, so that is where we decided to turn around and make our way back. There are a few muddy spots here and there, and a couple logs you may have to climb over, but it was overall a pleasant hike in my experience. 

The bridge at the end of the trail is closed.  Our main goal on this sunny day was to let the dogs swim.  We managed to do this in the river, not the lake.

NETTLES everywhere! Watch out. Pretty trail but you can only walk for a mile before you have to turn around. We went to the White Chuck Bench trail next and that was nice too.

The sky was blue and the air was crisp so headed out to hit the trail. Beaver Lake trail is approximately 30 miles east of Darrington. We didn't see anyone even on our drive out. Parking lot had snow and ice, only vehicle there. The bathroom was unlocked but not monitored. We used microspikes to navigate the parking lot and for the first part of the trail. We started around 10:45 am so it was still pretty chilly. The trail had lots of debris, a number of blow downs although we could climb over most of them. There was one slide with a tree as well that we climbed over. Due to melting snow the trail had lots of water but most "streams" are navigable by stepping carefully on logs or rocks. The clincher was the bridge about 1.25 miles in that was taken out on the far end by a tree that was still on the bridge. The barricade has been nailed in place to keep someone of walking into the smashed part of the bridge. My husband attempting a work around to no avail. You'd need a flotation device to get across. We could see Beaver Lake but couldn't get close to it. We turned around at the point. Upon returning to our vehicle, we found a location not far from the parking lot to test out a hammock I received as a product tester for REI. It's a camping hammock as opposed to a lightweight backpacking hammock. So it was a good day despite a short hike. We tracked 2.5 miles RT with 80' EG. It's a beautiful area and doesn't look like it would be busy even on the best of days.

The trail was pretty and very green and lush, and glimpses of the river and mountains were lovely. The described sturdy bridge had a tree fallen on it about halfway across, and the bridge was boarded up midway, with a sign saying that the trail/viewing point was at an end. I’d love to come back to see the end point with the river and views! Our hike ended up being about 3 miles round trip instead of 4, and we were sad to have missed out on the nice viewing point at the trail end. I’ll come back again someday, and hope there will be a chance for bridge repair!

We were the only car in the parking lot at 10AM on Sunday. We only saw one other group during our whole hike, as we were coming back to the parking area. Perhaps most people knew of other hikes nearby, or knew the bridge was impassable.