Wife had a baby in December so this was my first outing since August. Woo hoo!!! I drove all 15 miles of the muddy, pothole-ridden Middle Fork road. I can't believe my little car didn't break an axle. I got all my gear together, put on my hiking clothes and the went to get my boots and ... doh I left my boots at home and I was wearing flip-flops. Trip over.

Friday was another rainy day, as has been so many recent Fridays. Our ""senior"" group (I'm 78) walked the Taylor River Road-Trail hoping to see several waterfalls. It was an excellent time to do the hike since melting snow and frequent rainstorms had the river and its various tributary creeks booming with heavy water flow. The Taylor River was a beautiful white-water sight whenever we glimpsed it, which was often. It made intense, beautiful music. Other hikers saw a very large black bear in the first mile of the hike after we had passed through. This was no surprise since our entire hike was in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area. We had no such luck in seeing a bear. I heard a few barks which may have been coyotes. The trail was wet and usually full of rocks. Sometimes water was running down the trail. The trail was washed out in two places making the hike difficult. We walked through or at the edges of hundreds of water puddles, and we crossed 7 creeks by walking on stones. One was quite difficult for me. Nobody fell or twisted an ankle. We had to cross the 7 creeks a second time since this was not a circle hike. We encountered Martin Falls at the 3 mile mark and crossed Martin Creek on a bridge. We decided to pass on taking the short hike to Otter Falls. At the 5 mile point we saw Big Creek Falls which made the entire hike worthwhile. We sat and ate lunch on the concrete bridge over the creek and enjoyed the sight of water pouring down smooth granite. We only stayed 15 minutes. It was raining, of course, and the bridge was not sheltered by trees. It rained harder on the return trip- at one point extremely hard. Our hike was 10 miles round trip with 650 feet elevation change. Dale

Another family hike and one might ask. Whats so unusual about that? Nothing really, since we seem to get out every weekend. Whats so unusual about this one is that out of 40 years of hiking, climbing scrambling and fishing, I'd never been up the Taylor River Trail before. The trail follows an old abandoned logging road that soon becomes trail. Besides a few spots with mud and a few washouts, the trail was in pretty good shape. After 2.5 miles we came to the crossing of Martin Creek and a good view of Martin Creek Falls. After a few mandatory pictures we headed on up the trail and in about 1.5 miles we crossed Otter Creek. Just past a campsite, the Trailmaster found a rock carin under a tree marking the trail to Lipsy Lake and Otter Falls. A short climb took us to Lipsy Lake, actually just a plunge pool at the bottom of the falls. Being that we always leave early in the morning, we had the little lake with the waterfall falling into it for ourselves. Again we took more pictures. Me Lady and Princess taking turns with the digital camera and myself, the ole goat, using my old beat up Minolta 35mm, switching back and forth between my regular lens and a wide angle lens. After lunch we joined the main trail and headed up to Big Creek Falls, 0.7 miles further. Here the trail crosses Big Creek on an old concrete bridge, left over from the logging days. Big Creek Falls was the most spectacular we'd seen all day. Again we took the mandatory pictures before heading back down the trail. All in all, a pretty good hike. A good one for early in the season before the high lakes open up.

The Middle Fork Road is in much better condition than I remember it. The sign at the trail head says Snoqualmie Lake, not Trail #1002 or Taylor River which I was expecting. There was no mud on the trail but there are two large screams crossing the trail, which I had to ford in shin deep water. There is no established spur trail to get to Lipsy Lake. Just after the second stream I had to ford there was a small grassy area with a fire circle, just big enough for one large tent. This particular stream is easy to recognize, half the water was running across the trail and half in a huge metal pipe. About 25 yards after this I turned left and made my way through the trees for about 200 yards to get to the lake. If you are continuing up the trail the detour to see Otter Falls from the Lake is worth it. I hiked on a weekday and only saw three people on the trail.

An absolutely stunning day that turned out significantly warmer than predicted - I should have worn shorts. Welcome back, summer! I hadn't driven to this trailhead in about a year. I don't know who put in all the sterling work re-gravelling long stretches of the Middle Fork Road, but they can't possibly be thanked enough. Even the WRX prefers dirt roads that are more road than pothole, and this is now a far more pleasant drive and over fifteen minutes faster. Three cars at the trailhead when I arrived, four when I left, but with the various destinations available from here, I only met two other parties the whole hike - one leaving as I hiked in, one going up when I was heading back to the car. There's a large wash-out about a mile and a half in (read an eight foot deep gully up to twenty feet across), passable either by braving the bushes and skirting the top, or ploughing straight through. There's some mud at the bottom, but currently nothing drastic. All the creeks are easy to cross boulder to boulder in standard hiking boots right now, at least if you have long legs. No snow on the trail at all, but still a few patches in shady hollows past Otter Creek. Otter Creek's easy to recognise - it's the big one at 4.5 miles, with half the water passing in a pipe below the trail, and half needing to be forded. The trail up to the falls is a hundred yards or so after it, marked by a small cairn and a pink ribbon tied to a tree. The falls are vastly more impressive in person than any photo can bring across. I've not seen a picture yet that really gives a sense of their scale, and while that seems to be true for many waterfalls, it's even more so in this case. I had a gorgeous lunch watching them from across Lipsy Lake (really nothing more than the plunge pool), sitting on a sunlit rock with no hint of a human for miles. The flowers are starting to kick in - trillium, skunk cabbage, smooth yellow violet, bleeding heart. The butterflies, of course, came with them - mourningcloaks, tortoiseshells, the, er, small blue ones. I also saw frogs and the biggest garter snake I've yet laid eyes on, at two and a half feet long. This was about as perfect as a spring day gets, and an easy, level hike to a beautiful location. Four hours, including lunch and a lot of photography! More pics at http://eelpi.livejournal.com/