Arrived on a Friday at 11:30am and not too many cars on the road (it’s a small lot). Not too muddy even after a rainy day before. It’s a steep hike if you go right on the loop, but then it’s nice to have a steady downhill on the second half of the loop. Got back around 1:30pm. Fun lil workout!

A great walk in the woods and perfect for the shoulder season. Just enough to get your blood pumping, but mostly wet woods, cold creeks, and beautiful bridges. A few patches of snow make the descent a bit slippery, especially if you tack on the viewpoint - but overall, fine even in tennis shoes. Campground, parking lot, and facilities are closed, but plenty of parking along the road.

It was a soggy day to be on the trail, but wonderful to get outside.  Big Creek is a great go-to when you want to be out, but not looking for anything too difficult.  It is a good steady climb though to get your cardio up.

The trail is in fantastic shape.  Several areas of standing water, but nothing unmanageable.  The creeks are flowing high and fast.

Parking was easy, outside the closed campground gate.  There were also a few cars parked along the highway.

[Tagging Mt. Ellinor, because I snapped a picture of the lower lot (buried in snow) and hiked to the viewpoint at about 3,330 ft, shortly before the junction with the upper trailhead. More below]

I arrived at a quiet Big Creek parking lot at about 8:45 am this morning. Only two other cars in the lot. Straight out of the car, I put on spikes, as I was greeted with bare ice. I started the loop going clockwise. The whole way is covered in snow/ice which sometimes was really quite slushy. It is still gorgeous, lush, and quiet forest though! I continued on the Mt. Ellinor Connector Trail. The bootpath was easy to discern all the way up the the viewpoint and then to the junction with the Mt. Eillnor Trail.

Since I was curious to the status of the road, I took a quick detour to peek at the lower lot. Lots of snow...probably close to 8-10 inches. If you want to attempt Ellinor anytime soon, it's looking like access from Big Creek is the only way! At this point, I switched to snowshoes, not out of necessity, but moreso because I had them, so why not? It took about 30 minutes to reach the viewpoint of the lake that's along the Mount Ellinor Trail. Completely socked in with zero views. From what I could tell, the footprints did continue past the viewpoint along the trail. Not sure for how long.

I was a few minutes into the return trip when I nearly had a heart attack encountering another hiker. (I had forgotten other humans existed :)) I only saw four other people the rest of the day! Completing the loop back to the campground was not a problem. Lots of snowy slush, so care is needed, but totally doable!

Beautiful winter hike through the Upper Big Creek loop. Trail was covered in packed snow and sometimes bare ice. I wore microspikes. The snow approaching the Mt. Ellinor Junction is thick and heavy and very pretty to see weighing down the trees. The icicles in the creek just east of the junction are long and very cool!