Trail in great condition. Did a 6 mile loop on cougar. From pergola the view of mt baker were clear but the lower elevation were covered in smoke as seen from million dollar viewpoint.

We were fortunate to hike on a rare sunny Saturday. But, still, the Harvey Manning trail and particularly the Cougar Pass trail were muddy. There's a downed log across the Harvey Manning trail. If nibble, you can get under it and, if not too short, can sit on it and swing your legs over it. We saw lots of oyster mushrooms and a few were collected ... those who cooked them later in the day said they weren't that tasty.

We did a figure-8 loop starting/end at the French cafe at Talus (see map below). Despite it being Saturday it was not too crowded on any of the trails we did.

The trails have drained surprisingly well from the recent downpours, having only the usual mud sections on Bear Ridge shortly below the West Tibb junction, on West Tibbett's itself, and a bit on Cougar Pass. However the vegetation has been super-charged by the recent rains - everything looks more lush than two weeks ago and a few sections feel much narrower with all the new branches pushing in on the trail. There are a lot of wildflowers out as well - the trilliums are done (at least I didn't see any) but there are a bunch of new small white and purple flowers throughout, and a few stretches with hundreds of buttercups.

The upper sections of this route have a lot of bugs right now. The whole area between the Tibbett's Marsh trail and the Coyote Creek trail is abuzz - when you stop hiking you can hear the buzzing quite loudly in the background. But the bugs are not too too bothersome as long as you keep moving.

The afternoon weather looked great so we went out for a short pre-dinner hike, doing a lollipop loop starting from the Talus Connector up Bear Ridge and West Tibbett's Creek, then looping clockwise on Cougar Pass, Harvey Manning and Tibbett's Marsh before coming back out the same way we came in.

It was my first time out on the trails in a few weeks and Spring has definitely progressed - everything is looking more lush, many things are budding and there are quite a few flowers already blooming or starting to. There were quite a few trilliums, both the light purple and the white varieties, throughout the trail.

All the trails we did have drained nicely from the recent rains, with only a few minor mud spots on West Tibbett's and Cougar Pass - the rest is in perfect walking shape, not too dry but not soggy.

We encountered 4 parties throughout the whole 1.5 hour hike.

Parked at the Harvey Manning trail head, and from there had a lovely weekday afternoon hike along Shangri-la trail, down Bear Ridge to the "fantastic erratic" and back up along Tibbets Creek and the Harvey Manning trail to the parking lot. There's a map at the trailhead you can take a picture of, and every trail intersection is well-signed. There's enough trails here you can really choose your own adventure, and while I saw about 15 people over the course of about 2.5 hours of hiking, most of them were hikers or trail runners and mostly near the trail head, so plenty of opportunity to enjoy the trail in solitude. 

Trail was muddy enough I was glad to be wearing hiking boots but not so muddy as to be super problematic. 

Don't miss the sign very shortly after the trail leaves the parking lot for the Viewing Point /  Pergola, as it's a lovely viewpoint with picnic tables and generally views on the rest of the trail are scarce. Lovely moss-covered trees and peeks of mountains on a sunny day but generally through gaps in the trees (more on Bear Ridge than on the more interior trails). 

Also, while there's no restroom at the trailhead, Radar park is just around the corner (you can see it from the trailhead parking lots) and has restrooms and a portapotty, and also some pretty interesting signs explaining about how the site used to be a military base with anti-aircraft guns. Worth checking out.