Parked at trailhead for about an hour to go down to the river from trail around 4:30 pm.  When I returned to my car, my car's catalytic converter had been stolen.  Don't know if this has happened to anyone else along the Middle Fork Snoqualmie road but just want to make people aware that this is happening.  I was also the only car parked at trailhead and I have a Honda CRV.

We spent a very pleasant day showing our out of town family visiting the lovely Middle Fork area. We were three generations of hikers, with my 60+ Mom and partner who “don’t walk much,” us two, my 7 and 5-yo little ones hiking independently, and 1-yo being carried. We took them to Garfield Ledges first to get the climb out of the way, and everyone did great. The trail is a bit steep but equally doable for kids this age, and for those with creaky knees. My mom hoofed it up quite easily with the rest of us, and with lots of breaks to pick huckleberries (abundant right now!), we got to the top in 40 mins or so. The trail is in great shape. After a nice break to soak up the views, we took about 30-35 mins to head back down, then drove back down the road to the Oxbow Loop trailhead.

We parked at the bigger lot so we could take advantage of the full lollipop loop, and it worked out better to go counter-clockwise since we had lunch at the river and at that point we were only about 10-15 mins away from the car. We enjoyed an hour long leisurely lunch at the river. My kids enjoyed seeing all the tiny tadpoles along the trail. We also saw several garter snakes, and a big pile of berry-filled Bear scat but no Bear, (much to the relief of our older visitors). The bugs are pretty bad right now. The trail is in good shape, with the only real tricky part being the overgrown stinging nettles on many stretches of the trail that should be avoided.

These hikes are both delightful, easy, gorgeous and truly do offer something for everyone! 

This is a great little trail and perfect for a fun, easy outing with a group of small children!

We arrived at about 10:00 and there were several parking spots available by the vault toilet (overflow lot just up the road from the full trailhead parking area). Trail is in great shape-- no obstacles. There were lots of berries along the trail, so picking and snacking on the go kept things interesting for the kids. We took the longer side of the loop trail first (1.2 miles to river from trailhead), and had a long break for lunch and playing in the water. The return trip to the parking area was much shorter. GPS tracked 2.7 miles RT, ~190 ft elevation gain, and 3 hours (including breaks). Great day out in the woods :-)

A relaxing and quiet hike on a Sunday afternoon, with enough excitement to make it adventurous: 

Mosquitoes were biting, especially in the shady areas near the river and lake!  In one spot, on the west side of the loop, stinging nettles were close enough to the trail to nab the hiker wearing shorts!  Thimble berries and Trailing Blackberries are ripe - the bears like them too and we stepped over some berry-filled bear poo on the trail!  We enjoyed the lake views, giant tree stumps, and inviting log benches! 

Bring your water shoes if you'd like to make it easier to get your feet wet in the beautiful rocky river just off the well-marked River Access Trail!

No issues with parking, we arrived about 5:00. We saw three people on the trail total (walking together). We saw 3 banana slugs, 2 were getting married my kids tell me.

Beautiful views all around. Lots of wildflowers. We had our dog with us on his very first hike, he loved it. He recommends you walk in the river & spread out your webbed feet.

There are three trails that are at the entrance, the far left us the TH. We went down the middle trail and came out near the trail on the far right.