Brushy and a bit overgrown in parts. Beautiful warm day inspite of overcast conditions

A lovely morning jaunt around on the Middle Fork Snoqualmie this foggy morning (which cleared up around noon)!

THE ROAD / PARKING

I parked at the trailhead that you hit first when coming in from I-90 along the Middle Fork, which brings you directly to the loop trail itself. That said, I went over to the main parking lot to meet with my group. 

The trailhead I parked at (not the main one) is small-ish, but could hold 8-ish(?) cars or so if people are parking nicely. There are no amenities here, but there is a kiosk with a trail map, as well as a small bench. As mentioned, the actual Oxbow Loop starts here.

The main trailhead — which is a quarter-mile of connector trail or 0.1 mile on the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Road away — has 2 vault toilets in great shape, with plenty of toilet paper. The lot itself can also hold about the same number of cars. This trailhead also has a map kiosk. 

THE TRAIL

The connector trail from the main trailhead to the start of the loop is in great shape. I saw jelly fungus, plenty of salmonberries, and a great view of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River.

The Oxbow Loop itself isn't in bad shape, but is somewhat overgrown. Some of the plants that were growing into the trail were very prickly (I'm bad at identifying things, so I'm not sure what they were). One of the plants I walked into had needles that stuck to my leggings, after which I had to pick each one out as they were very pointy and stabbing me through my leggings. 

That said, a majority of the trail is in good shape, and it was a nice easy loop hike first thing in the morning.

We did head to the river access point about a quarter-mile down from the start of the loop heading clockwise (you can see it on the kiosk maps), which had some nice flat areas to sit in for lunch, and really does allow you to get right up to the river. 

MISC.

The river is rushing! Definitely seems like the snowmelt is here.

There were no annoying bugs on the trail but there were plenty of annoying gnats in the parking lot, for whatever reason. 

There are some tree-trunk benches scattered throughout the trail — many of them have gotten a little overgrown, so sitting on them doesn't seem as pleasant and/or the views have been covered up by growth. 

It was a very quiet morning. Aside from our group, I only saw 5 other hikers and we were there for 4 hours. 

What's better than hiking on a Saturday? Hiking on a Friday, of course.

Oxbow Loop has two parking lots, separated by about .2 miles. The northern lot has privies and space for a few more cars. I didn't check the bathrooms, but the trail wasn't very crowded on Friday.

The trail itself is a bit brushy in some parts. It's a beautiful hike otherwise. Highlights are river access, a cool bridge, and even some old growth stumps. Salmon berries and fox glove were present.

For those of you curious about the phenomenon of an oxbow lake.

Awesome little hike to the river and around the lake.  Perfect grade and distance for little kids.

Wildflowers are blooming now and some salmon berries are starting to appear, but nothing ripe as of yet.

Hello...Our today hiking cohort of five met today at Oxbow Loop at 10. Lovely day, blue skies, warm spring temp. The lot has two privies and we found the one on the LEFT to be the one to choose. Cleaner, better, and stocked.

Headed out for a stroll around Oxbow, clockwise. Its always so pretty and today extra pretty. Headed around the whole loop, about a mile or more until we got to the finish and after a short break we headed out down the street to the left to the entrance of CCC Blowout at the blue gate. Walking on the road was only about .1 mile so back into the forest we went.

The old Bessemer Road was about a mile, uphill and most of it was in the sun, so we were happy to reach the new bridge on the left over Blowout Creek and head out into the cool, flat forest trail. We walked to the second bridge, maybe a mile or so, then stopped for lunch. By this time it was 1, so we'd been moving along for almost three hours at this point, albeit slowly. Sat by the stream, had a nice long lunch then headed back the way we came. 

Got back to our cars, still at Oxbow, about 2:30 and said our goodbyes until next hike.

I like these two trails for the easy drive in, the flat elevation, and the scenic solitude they provide. We really only saw four people total on both trails today. MJB