Rolled up to the Foss Lakes trailhead around 7:00 in the A.M. on Saturday morning (8/21) with low clouds and a light drizzle unfortunately already there. Hit the trail up to Trout Lake at 7:15 and made my way to the lake without incident by 7:45. A few fish were rising, but I had no time to play, for my day was sure to be a long one. By 8 I was at the first switch-back away from Trout Lake, and the turn off point for Delta, Otter, and Nazanne. I should have read John's report before I left, for at this point I headed strait down to the Copper outlet where I decided to cross (this is actually not the correct place to cross, more on this later). The rocks here were smooth and polished with a nice coat of slime mixed in to make the crossing more interesting. Here the water was fairly deep (~2.5') at the deepest. I tried very hard to avoid getting wet feet so early in the trek, but ended up getting my right foot soaked despite gore-tex boots, gaiters, and long pants. Once across, I saw no sign of a trail, so I headed south up the valley. The going was extremely slow, some of the thickest brush I've ever seen. Used a couple of boulder fields to speed up my pace, but eventually I ran out of room. At this point I had no choice but to head down to the W.F. of the Foss to see if I could find some sort of trail. After beating my way through some nasty brush and D-Club, I found a very faint trail, no more than 30 ft from the river. Hardly noticeable beneath the brush, the trail took me up the valley switch backing around rock walls, and huge Douglas Fir. As I went on, the trail became quite steep in places as it climbed the ridge up to Delta. Here there were huge waterfalls cascading over the surrounding cliffs. I was shocked at the amount of water coming down this drainage and over these cliffs.....very impressive. Once above this first set of falls, the way flattened, but was even rougher than below. Rough meaning blowdown after blowdown, numerous creek crossings, and having to push brush aside to see if the trail went left or right. The trail continued up to another large falls even more spectacular than the first, climbed over another ridge and then flattened all the way to the outlet of Delta. Don't try to force your way around the west side of the lake, here you must cross the deep outlet, which is not difficult, go 70 ft across a small island, cross another outlet stream, and then find the faint trail on the east side of the lake. By the time I had gotten this far it was 10 a.m. and my clothes had to be rung out they were so wet. The problem wasn't the rain, but all the standing water on the leaves of the plants that did me in. So I changed into dry clothes, put on my rain gear, and broke out the fly rod. There were a lot of fish willing to rise to my fly, but most were small 7-9"". Both cutthroat and rainbows exist in the lake, but the rainbows seem to be a bit larger and more aggressive. Flys used were common caddis and mayfly patterns. After some fishing, and a nice lunch under a tree I decided to pass on Nazanne (too wet, and too low of a ceiling) and head up to Otter. I proceeded along the eastern shore of the lake following the trail sometimes next to the water and sometimes high up on cliffs. As I rounded the southern end of the lake I came across two good size campsites and the outlet from Otter. Here the trail proceeds up the left side of the Otter outlet following it all the way to the lake. About 3/4 of the way to Otter there is another huge waterfall, and a large boulder field off to its left. The trail fades entirely here, but I stayed to the left, and made my way up the boulders heading for a narrow gap in the cliffs above. About 60 ft from the gap it is necessary to veer to the left out of the boulder field because the gap is about 12 ft of vertical rock, which for me was impassable. So, I made my way up and around the last 70 ft of the boulder field and proceeded down a neat little corridor (10 ft wide x 10 –15 ft high x 200 ft long). This looked to be another branch of the outlet in early summer as in some places there was 2 ft of standing water. The water was unavoidable, but at this point my boots had a 1/4 inch of water in them so it made little difference. At this point, I thought I had lost the trail for good, but upon exiting the corridor it magically appeared off to my left. Back on the trail again, I followed it along some rock cliffs, across a large marsh, and along the outlet for an 1/8th of mile to Otter Lake, elevation 3925 ft. The logjam was the largest I’ve ever seen, so I was able to walk almost with my eyes closed out to the edge where I found a nice, fat log to lay down on. It was 2:00 p.m. (2 hours from Delta) and the sun was shining; a welcome relief for a spent hiker. With everything except my shorts out to dry, I tried my hand at some more fly-fishing. As at Delta, the fish were more than willing to rise to my fly, I caught a dozen or so rainbows and cutthroats with the same flys I had used at Delta. I left Otter around 4 following the same path I came in on. Back down at Delta I noticed that I had lost my sunglasses and Nalgene water bottle along the way. I guess they’ll become permanent fixtures of the trail along with the size 10.5 white Nike shoe, oar, and cribbage board (with pegs) that I came across on my trip up. I left Delta at 5:30, and headed back down the valley deciding this time to take the trail all the way to the Copper outlet to see where the correct crossing was. When I got there, it looked worse than the place I had crossed 300 ft above on the way in. I made my way through the knee deep water, and once on the other side headed strait up to the main trail. Now back on the “interstate”, I followed the thousands of boot prints made by the Copper seekers and arrived back at the car at 8:30...13 hours on the trail.

Could not have asked for a more perfect day on the Taylor River. What made the experience even better was that I was hiking with my favorite partner - Dad. The trail is wide most of the way which makes for very sociable side-by-side hiking but there was mud in few places. Had some great views of Granite Mountain(') and other sheer rock cliffs on quick forays to the river for the first half of our hike. Once the trail left the river, the blend of old growth cedar and second growth timber made for a very quite, peaceful hike. The first major creek you cross at approximately 2.5 miles is a very picturesque setting for pictures and quick rest stop. We hiked out to an old concrete bridge, 1.5 miles further, that crosses over Otter Falls for lunch. The bridge seems a little out of place in that setting but the granite falls worn smooth by the creek make up for that fact. This is a good place to turn around unless you wish to continue up to Snoqualmie Lake, approximately 2 miles more. Only passed one other group and they had hiked over from Hwy 2 to I-90, other than that, we had the trail to ourselves.

No snow was encountered along the entire route. Dorothy, Bear, Deer and Snoqualmie Lakes were all snow free. There is a temporary trailhead 2.5 miles back of the actual trailhead (has the actual trailhead ever been open') and the road is scheduled to open (you guessed it) next week. The Lake Dorothy Trail has been cleared to the southwest end of the lake. There are three windfalls on the switchbacks above Dorothy and about forty on the other side heading down past Bear, Deer and Snoqualmie Lakes to the old trailhead on the once Taylor River Road. The trail is brushy on the switchbacks above Snoqualmie Lake and incredibly brushy alongside Snoqualmie Lake and for about 25% of the trail length to the old trailhead. All the windfalls have been catalogued for a contractor who will be cutting out these nuisances. Some of the windfalls have been in place for so long that the detour is now an established trail and the original tread is no longer discernable - these windfalls were omitted from the catalog. There are some areas of heavy brush and there are three windfalls along the old Taylor River Road. Weather was overcast (very Saturday-like) with thunderstorms starting at 3 pm and lasting until 5:30. Constant rain starting before 7 pm and tapering off sometime overnight. Sunday was overcast with clearing just as we head into the work week (the gods are cruel indeed). Puncheon, rocks and other assorted nuisances are very slippery. Canadian dogwood, tiger lily, columbine, coral root, dewberry, and foxglove were noted.

This was my first time here, the goal being an easy and rewarding location for a first backpacking trip for my 12 year old son. The date was fixed, so the challenge was finding a snow-free location. With a lot of help from this website, we found it! A late start put us at the trail-head at 3pm, with lots of other cars, including a red sports car with alarmingly smashed up windows. Hoping our car wouldn't meet the same fate, we took off. What a great easy hike: gentle uphills, cool, shady trail, lovely streams. Erik thought there were rather too many streams that required rockhopping to cross, and managed to get his feet wet a couple of times, but I stayed dry. We camped just off the trail about a mile short of Otter Falls, and hiked up there the next morning. Wow! An amazing flow of water down a carved rock cliff face. Sort of Denny Creek Water Slide writ large and vertical. How and why that concrete bridge got built there is a puzzlement, but it's very solid and reassuring. Campsites are few and close to the trail, but there is one at Otter Falls. We liked ours in the woods better. The trail is brushy in spots, muddy in spots, with a few easy to cross blowdowns. It's shared with mountain bikes -- the riders we met were all friendly and courteous. Monday it was quite busy, but Tuesday we almost had the place to ourselves. Got back to the car 3pm Tuesday, no smashed windows. The tags on that sports car license are 2 years old -- has it been there that long' Flowers: yellow violets (and one purple one) columbines, foamflower. We also saw 2 Cascades frogs and one little blue butterfly.

Taylor River #1002 May 27. Went 4.15 miles to Otter Falls (8.3 round trip). Had to rock hop some small creeks. Only a few minor snow patches. Falls were larger and more impressive than expected. Concrete bridge over base of falls makes sunny lunch spot. About 4 easy hours plus lunch.