It's been since Dec. 31st since being on Upper Big Creek. This is one of my top favorite trails, but that New Year's Eve hike nearly did me in with the snow conditions. From the drive to the road outside the campgrounds there is evidence all over the place of how hard the Olympics were hit this winter. So much effort had to be put into keeping the roads clear and then the trail clear. Thank you to all of you who take care of this area. Almost all the snow has melted. Up toward the area of the bridges there is intermittent snow that is covered in so many small pine branches and needles it has built in traction. I went counter clockwise to get peeks of the mountains since they were out and showing off their beauty today. Since the trail was nice and dry, no running water and no mud, I hit the Ellinor connector to the overlook. The connector is in even better shape than the main trail. There is one precarious tree that hangs over the trail at the start and then one easy to step over tree further up. The gray jays said hi by way of pecking at my shoe. I said hi by way of happily not sharing any of my lunch with them. If you have the extra steam for a lot of elevation in a mile and a half (don't believe the sign), then take the connector. Even on cloudy days, I love it up there. Keep going until you see the "rlook" sign, then hang a sharp left. On the way down there is a huge root ball from a giant tree that forces you to veer a little off the trail. I'm looking forward to my next time on Upper Big Creek. Soon there will be flowers. 

Beautiful day for hiking. We took the trail clockwise. The trail had a rough winter. Fortunately the work that has been done is obvious as there was little debris still on the trail. The trail starts off easily moving through the forest but then the elevation gain starts and it is steady up for sure! After the upper crossing of Big Creek the trail is largely slow downhill. That is where we ran into snow mixed with branch debris that made me happy to have my poles, but was otherwise easily navigated and brief. The bridges are in good shape - a bit of damage to one but it just needs railing work it seems. Enjoy your time out on this lovely trail!

The whole area looks like a tornado hit it. Trees and limbs down everywhere! The Big Creek loop trail itself was cleared off though. The side trail down to the river confluence was totally obscured by snow and downed trees and branches in some areas. We ended up just losing the trail and went overland back up to the Big Creek Loop. There is a small amount of snow on the loop trail at the top, but not a big deal. This was, of course, a beautiful trail! The area where the rivers come together is magical! It was a beautiful sunny day for a hike, highly recommend this one!

Thank you to whoever worked on this trail recently! You can tell there was a really bad storm - there are so many downed trees everywhere, but all cleared on the trail itself. There is just one downed tree you have to duck under, but it's easy to pass. 

We did take the short detour to the Confluence trail, and that hasn't been cleared. It wasn't impassable, just hard to find the trail sometimes with the snow and branches everywhere. Picture with all the snow is from the confluence trail section.

There is still a little snow on both Big Creek and the Confluence section, but not much (should be gone soon) and microspikes not needed at all.

Small parking lot, which was full by 9 am on a Saturday, but there is plenty of street parking. Bathrooms were open. 

A friend and I drove up to take a look at Mount Ellinor. I hadn’t been up there this year and was curious about conditions. We didn’t plan on or bring gear for the summit.

The woods around Big Creek look like a tornado went through, with many downed and splintered trees, but the road and trail crews have done an amazing job clearing everything up. We started at the Big Creek campground; the trail was snow free to the bridge at the confluence, can’t speak to the condition of the loop trail after that. We headed up the Ellinor connector trail, surprised that there was absolutely no snow all the way to the lower trailhead. We detoured to the parking area there, which is still entirely snowed in. We talked to a couple of guys there who said the road is snow covered for about 1/2 mile before the TH, possibly also a berm blocking access. We continued up the snow free trail, until patches of hard snow started to appear just past the bench and big rock at about 3500 feet elevation. We donned micro spikes for the remainder, not strictly needed but definitely helpful. There was about an inch of powder snow on older hard packed snow, very pleasant walking.

Taking the winter route we got to the open area below the first big chute. Neither of us had looked at the avy report as we hadn’t planned on going for the summit, also no gaiters or ice axes, so we called it a day and had lunch. Probably a good call- the summit was in dense cloud, our lunch spot started getting darker and colder with some icy rain, so we beat feet. It looked like we had the mountain to ourselves, and the snow was great for walking, but… another day.