A great early-season visit to Snoqualmie Lake! Somehow, all of my wettest hikes ever have been on the Taylor River Trail, so I thought I would take this opportunity to hike it on a warm sunny day - it was awesome!

TL;DR: There is water everywhere on this trail right now, either bring high-top waterproof boots, or bring trail runners and just accept that your feet are going to be wet all day. Beautiful forest and scenic waterfalls abound. There is plenty of snow in the last mile to the lake.

TRAILHEAD: The usual potholes to the Snoqualmie Lake Trailhead, drive slow and you'll be fine. The bathroom at the trailhead is clean and stocked. There was only one car when I arrived at 8 AM, and I saw only four other parties on the trail all day.

SNOW: There is no snow below 2400', which includes Otter Falls and the entire Taylor River Trail to the junction. See further notes below in my Snoqualmie Lake trail section for details.

TO OTTER FALLS: The walk up to Otter Falls is through lovely forest with occasional views of the Taylor River and Mount Garfield along the way. It has the usual mossy rain forest vibe you'll find elsewhere in the lowland Middle Fork Trails, and being an old road, it has a very gentle grade with only little ups and downs. The bridge over Marten Creek (about three miles in) is a nice turnaround if you just want a short hike.

To get to Otter Falls, be aware that there are three decent water crossings to navigate, and many smaller ones. Poles are helpful, and if you are nervous about rock-hopping, you might even carry some water shoes and shorts so you can just wade through them. The levels will usually drop off in late spring, depending on the snow pack.

I hadn't planned to visit Otter Falls today, but I saw the bright white falls shining through the trees, so decided to check it out. It was quite nice with a large volume of water coming down the falls, glowing in the morning sun. This is a good turnaround for an easy day trip, though if you make it here, I would highly advice going 1/2 mile further up to Big Creek Falls.

Obstacles: There are 8 blowdowns on the way to Otter Falls. Almost all are stepovers except for one big one near Marten Creek, which has an easy detour. In addition, there are 21 stream crossings. As usual, the big three are the very first one just past Quartz Creek, then the crossings at Anderson Creek and Otter Creek. All three were doable with dry feet, assuming high-topped waterproof footwear. At Otter Creek, I recommend the lower crossing through the logs and the old culvert - the upper crossing is way too deep right now unless you fancy a swim! In addition to the water crossings, there were at least 10 or 15 places with water running down the trail, though these should lessen after a day or two of dry weather.

OTTER FALLS TO SNOQUALMIE / NORDRUM JUNCTION: The main attraction in this section is Big Creek Falls, where a sturdy concrete bridge crosses just feet from the falls. There was so much water coming down today that it was unpleasant to stand on the bridge due to the spray. Pretty impressive!

Obstacles: This section had 4 blowdowns and 10 stream crossings. The trail was in great shape, and compared to the other sections, there was not much water running on the trail. I cut out 3 or 4 smaller blowdowns with my saw, pretty much everything left is a step-over.

SNOQUALMIE LAKE: The proper trail, which isn't an old road, starts at the Snoqualmie / Nordrum junction. It's only about 2 miles to the lake, but there is a lot more elevation gain, and the trail is more rugged, so I would expect to go about half the speed on this section as you do on the Taylor River trail. And that's not accounting for the snow (see below).

This trail enters the Alpine Lakes Wilderness before too long, and has some nice big trees and lovely trail-side scenery. There is a nice view of Treen Peak at the washout near 2100', and a much better view as you approach the lake at about 3000'. It's a bit hard to see the trail through the washout, but it goes up from both sides to get across.

There is a huge waterfall (often called Nordrum Falls) in a gorge at the first switchback at 2350' - this is a great place to turn around right now if you don't want to deal with snow. The waterfall is raging right now and you can get up-close and personal with it (don't fall in!). The outlet waterfall at Snoqualmie Lake is also a sight to see, and it is absolutely raging at the moment. This isn't surprising with all the rain recently - the lake level is quite high at the moment.

In terms of snow, it starts intermittently at about 2400', and becomes continuous perhaps at about 2800. However, even once it is "continuous" it is melted out in places where the water is running down or across the trail. Near the lake, the snow is only about 1-2' deep in the trees, but out in the open it is more like 3-4' deep. The extreme warm weather the last few days meant the snow was super soft and unsupportive. It was Posthole City, population me, for the last 1/2 mile to the lake. I was frequently sinking above the tops of my gaiters, and occasionally up to my waist. Apologies to any snowshoers who plan to go up there soon, but I'm guessing this is not a frequent snowshoe destination.

Obstacles: The trail starts out with some large and ominous blowdowns, but fortunately most of the trail is in good shape. I counted 16 blowdowns to the lake, but most are easy to get over, with 2 or 3 requiring an easy detour or climb over/under. The stream crossings are a bit more numerous - I counted 29 of them, not including the spots where the trail is basically a creek bed, and there were at least 15 such places. Most of the stream crossings are not too hard to get over, but there was one that required a pretty large step / leap, and there was really way to do it without putting my foot on a rock right in the middle of the flow. There was enough flow today that it went over the top of my boot briefly. So much for dry feet!

Left the trailhead at 8:30. No cars in the lot. Saw a new marker on the trail . It was a cairn with the the words etched in saying “Dog Mountain”. With a pink ribbon in a tree as well. I will definitely be reading up about it and exploring soon. Arrived at the falls at 10:15, snapped some pics and had lunch. Headed up to Big Creek Falls before heading back to the trailhead. Rained most of the day. Saw a few other people on the trail but mostly had it all to myself. Arrived back at the trailhead at 1:30. parking was almost full. All in all a good to be out in the woods.      

Went up to the falls for a Sunday afternoon jaunt and wasn't disappointed. This trail is absolutely gorgeous, even on a cloudy day. There so many little creeks and waterfalls and the green forest carpet looks like something out of Lord of The Rings. That said, there are currently 3 reasonably precarious creek crossings. One of them is before the Marten Creek bridge, the other two are after. I'd highly recommend trekking poles as they help a lot with the crossings. There's some intermittent patches of snow here and there as well as a potentially dangerous downed limb. At about a mile-ish in, there's a broken tree leaning from left to right across the trail. It's currently supported in the y of a tree right of trail so make sure to pass it on the left and not walk under it. There's some more blowdown right before the turnoff to the falls but it's all fairly easily circumnavigated. The lake was a bit higher than normal and the waterline on the shore indicated that it had recently been even higher. I also noticed a few very early mosquitos and small flies so I'd bring fishing tackle if you're that way inclined as more abundant food and warmer water is likely to bring trout to the surface. All-in-all, a great way to spend a Sunday. 

Road:

The snow start past Mailbox trailhead. In the early morning, there were places where the road was really slick, so I was happy to have 4WD. The road is snow and ice covered. There is a large rock in the road about 2/3rd of the way to the parking lot that you will have to swerve around. The trailhead is also icy and snowy. The toilet was unlocked and stocked with TP. Once you get off the bridge, there are quite a few large potholes. We have taken our low clearance car up here many times, but I was thankful to have my jeep this morning.

Trail:

Easy to follow. Snow and ice on the trail. We brought spikes, but did not use them. Gaiters were helpful for the minimal postholing that happened. If you stick to the boot path, you should be fine. There are quite a few water crossings that are iced over that started to thaw out on our way back. Some of the falls were frozen and we heard large chunks of the ice breaking off and sliding down. 

Always a fun winter hike! We only saw a couple other hikers today and the weather was great! We arrived around 0830 and the hike was 8.9 miles round trip. 

We arrived at the TH around 10:30a on a Tue. We were the only car when we arrived. There were a handful of other cars when we left. We didn't see anyone on the trail. There is a toilet in the parking lot. It was stocked and clean.

There is frost but no snow on the trail. In 1-2 places there is ice where the stream crossing the trail had frozen. Everything was easy to walk around or across. We did not use poles. The streams were easy to cross.