A beautiful, short winter hike - 4.53 km round trip to the broken bridge at Beaver Lake according to GPS / Backcountry Navigator. There is the beauty of the forest, especially its mosses. There are mountains in the distance, Pugh, Bedal and Sloan. An there are animals. The beavers were invisible, of course; they don't usually like daytime. We saw 4 or 5 bald eagles, and a dipper was singing his heart out - springtime? (In the photo of the little guy note the rail. This is the trail section where the river washed out the railroad grade.)

In 2 pieces since 1995. this follows the railroad built in 1926 by the Sauk River Lumber Company.  Lots of people hike the recently reworked and well-signed Beaver Lake Trail (96 Reports to date), fewer the cut-off Lookout Tree Trail 783.1 (no Reports).

Drive the Mountain Loop Highway a little over 11 miles from Darrington (about 2 past Beaver Lake T.H.) to wide spot and hand-made T.H. sign on R.  Trail drops and is in good shape the quarter mile to the Lookout Tree, used by the Forest Service from 1916 to spot fires.  Trail continues another 50 yards then disappears.

Left is an orange flagged route, didn't appear to be a trail under there so I only went 4 flags.  Back at the trail-end I poked around and found the continuation, overgrown and blown-over.  In two spots there are jumbles of trees down, almost turned around but was able to find trail to continue.

At 1/2 mile beyond L.O. Tree is the location of the old trestle next to the river.  There didn't look to be an easy way across the slide (trail stays on near side of river), a Report from 2002 says they made it across from the other side.  Just before the trestle is an ancient "Trail Not Maintained Beyond This Point" sign, perhaps to absolve the F.S. of liability. I flagged and cleared some brush on the way back, not perfect but better.

I drove to and hiked the Beaver Lake Trail, recently cut short (again!) by trees knocking out the bridge over Beaver Lake.  What remains has been made into a viewing platform, sign reads "Trail End" but nimble hikers can continue to slide.  This trail is more RR like, with long, straight stretches.  Several places to access the river before and beyond the Lake, indeed getting across slide looked easier from this side.