Pass to pass Tuesday evening to Thursday evening: nights at Otter Falls and Bear Lake. Lots of water on trail to Snoqualmie, just go straight uphill and find trail after 100yds or so. Camping looks great-big site by lake. Trail to deer slightly overgrown. Snow on south west of Deer, follow footprints or closer to shore and trail reemerges. Didn't see camping there-too wet. At Bear lake found two off trail sites by the lake and a large burn. Beautiful but bugs! Snow on ridge to Dorothy follow footprints and postholes short way over top. The rest downhill to Dorothy and home. Handled about a half dozen blowdowns on all fours! Happy Trails.

Sometimes you just want to get out in the woods and burn up some snow-free trail. The Taylor River trailhead is less than an hour out of town and is the beginning of a long spendid low elevation hike past some exquisite waterfalls-raging at the moment with spring run off. The first 5 1/2 miles is along a long abandoned forrest service road. Marten Falls and Otter falls are worth the walk if you are short on time. Finally leaving the road, a real trail heads up gently through huge trees to snow covered Snoqualmie Lake. The trail is a bit wet, had a few easy to traverse windfalls, and is snow free until about a quarter mile before the lake. Last week brought a few inches of new snow so everything above 3,000' had that clean white winter look. A very nice easy day.

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.

First 3.5 miles on closed road grade is in good shape. After the fork between Nordrum and Snoqualmie Lake the Snoqualmie lake trail has 10-15 large blowdowns. At about 1.4 miles from the road, the trail is hard to follow due to a creek/slide that washed out a 100 yd section of the old trail. Going is always rocky, clearings are slightly overgrown and can be muddy and wet after rain.

Go the Roos! I'll barrack for North Melbourne since the only way Seattle will get a championship team is when whining becomes a professional sport. The Cougs are OK but they should really play the footy. There have been plenty of improvements made to the Miller River Trail. The rowdy groups weren't at the lake; mostly families, which made for a nice change of pace. There are a few windfalls and one collapsed puncheon on the way to Bear Lake, but the trail is very pleasant. Bear Lake did have a group of rowdies, but since I was encamped down at Deer, the ridge broke the noise. There are many windfalls between Bear and Snoqualmie Lakes and there are some brushy sections by Snoqualmie. This is a very nice alternative to the brush monster that 1002 is becoming in from Taylor River. No campfires allowed anywhere due to the extreme fire danger.