A bit of an off the beaten path, this trail deserves more love. It's an easy grade with just a gradual uphill, has basically no real goal and you get a nice forest walk with occasional views out to Sloan Peak and the White Chuck River below. Today there were lots of mushrooms of different kinds and just a bit of color change in the vine maples. The trail is in good shape to about 3 miles in, then it gets really brushy and overgrown. In a few spots there are some large ankle turning holes in the trail, so just keep an eye out. We hiked to the brushy section, then turned around and had lunch at the waterfall. There are a couple of waterfalls along the trail, but it's the 3rd one, somewhere between 2 1/2 - 3 miles in that makes a nice spot to stop. There are couple of lunch logs and rocks just before you cross the stream. Just beyond this is the high brushy part where we turned around. This is the trail is started doing trail work on and glad to report it has held up well. FYI the trail description mentions there is a loo at the TH, there is NOT and never has been the times I've been up here, so use the loos in the boat launch parking lot. 

first 2.5 miles of trail in great shape crews cleared most of foliage to that point, and very recently. After that you come down In elevation and the crews haven't hit the trail for about 2 miles it was very thick with nettle and berries, after that it was a breeze. crossed crystal creek and made it to the other trailhead I had lunch on the whitechuck beach and came back, I was stung by hornets 4 times in same spot of trail. seen numerous grouse and 3 deer. wta says it's 5 miles one way, my gps recorded 7.3 miles one way all in all it was fun and would recommend to anyone who wants to stay in shape and work the cardiovascular system constantly.

Short version: Meadow Mountain trail is passable as a route to Kennedy Hot Springs and PCT

Long version: This summer I was looking to hike repeat some sections of the PCT with my medium-sized dog starting just south of the fires in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, and this report covers the feasibility of getting to the trail without a car. The only other way to transport her (not that cars are terribly helpful to solo hikers doing thru-hikes) was by local/regional bus. Seeing that Darrington, Washington was one of the closest endpoints of the city/county bus lines to the PCT, I rode up from Portland using 13 interconnected bus routes in one day, arriving in the evening and walking out of town three miles past the county park and to the Old Sauk River Trail, where we camped for the night.It was a nice way to transition from the urban to the wild, which continued the next day as the 3-mile trail ended with about 4 more miles of road walking on the Mountain Loop Highway before turning off across the bridge to the Boat Launch, which looked like a spectacular place to catch some sun next to the beautiful blue glacier water.

Talked to a ranger about trail conditions trying to get to the PCT this way, I decided not to try the old White Chuck River Trail that was washed out 21 years ago. It sounded potentially trying to get my physically-rehabilitated pup up a washed-out trail, though I hadn't seen the June 20th report suggesting that the first part really isn't so bad, and would have been much quicker. Continued up the road to the White Chuck Bench trailhead, which had been brushed at both ends, but was a bit overgrown in the middle. Enjoyed the river views and access near the vault toilets at the end (which were apparently serviced just before the road washed out). Ran into some mountain bikers with dogs coming down from the pass as I hiked up around 4 miles of old single-laned gravel road, and they generously offered to re-up my camping gas and lighter situation (forgot to weigh the can and it wasn't nearly as full as it seemed).

The Meadow Mountain trail was a delightful surprise. Camped about a half mile past the Crystal Lake trail junction, just past Crystal Creek, where there was a nice flat spot just off the trail. Some Mountain Lion scat kept me on my toes with a tight hold on my dog's leash that night (she of course decided to roll around in it). Hiking up past the lake trail, the views started to get really good. When I came to a developed campsite that was marked on my map, I got confused which way the trail went. After trying the three trails leaving the camp-site, I realized the correct trail must have been the one to the left just before the camp, which looked more like the result of water erosion than a trail. I was already far down the wrong trail when the offline map on my phone (maps.me) revealed this, and a short uphill scramble brought us back to it just as it started to work its way down to the basin South of Meadow Mt, which I found to be transcendental.

Should have camped there, but anxious to get down the switchbacks, I continued along the ridge, only to find there was quite a bit of trail and elevation gain and loss remaining. Set up my tent on a small meadow hillock near the ridge crest, from the back side of which a barren moon-scape of melted snow and a new view of Glacier Peak could be seen, just as dense fog rolled in. At high south-facing elevations I had a Verizon signal, and the weather forecast was for rain/snow overnight, which turned out to be light rain starting at 8am the next morning. The trail hasn't been maintained in a long time, and at about this point was sometimes covered with slippery branches of the predominant low-growing shrub. Using a walking stick to keep tabs on the edge of the trail, which often dropped off sharply under the ground cover, I lightly rolled my ankle a couple of times, and sometimes had to push back against larger bushes and small trees pushing me off from the uphill side of the trail.

When the trail passed South of Fire Mountain, I lost track of it after passing through several small, recently-melted snowfields in a row, before the clear trail petered out. I'm not sure how long I was following decoy trails, but the offline map showed the trail to be a fair distance downhill from where I'd ended up. Going down the switchbacks to the crossing of Fire Creek, the trail entered deep forest, and the occasional rotting old footbridge was a reminder that this had once been a significantly-maintained trail connecting with a popular trail system along the White Chuck River before the washout.

Seeing a relatively level bench on my topo maps, I was hoping for something we could easily pass through, and it turned out that one of the southernmost swings of the trail as it followed Fire Creek down to the old trail junction dropped me into the most ideal orienteering environment I could hope for. The ancient, mostly open forest allowed for easy travel, and fallen trunks pointing my way took me over what undergrowth there was, with my dog happily making her own way along the numerous game trails. When I got to Pumice Creek after heading more or less directly South for half a mile, it seemed to be cutting deeply into alternating banks. It took a couple approaches to find a steep bank I could get down, and coax my dog down, with a reasonable bank on the other side. I'll try to post the GPS track I took once I'm able to get my phone fixed (I think the screen was damaged from excess water exposure). Climbing out the other side, I happened to be along the bank of a small tributary, and quickly came to the challenge with this route.

The downside to traveling across this level bench and avoiding 4.5 miles of trail, much of which is reportedly washed out and difficult bushwhacking, was the 3-400 foot steep descent to the river. The slopes where I first encountered it looked to be between 70-80 degrees, and after camping for the night, I followed the game trail along the edge about 3/4 mile until the White Chuck was visible turning to the South, and game trails started heading down 60-70 degree slopes. Not knowing if there were cliffs lower below, I tied a cord to my dogs harness, and we laboriously worked our way across the slope, descending where it looked like the slope was less steep. I do have the gps track from that section, though it could probably use some cleaning up, and without a dog the descent would probably be much simpler. Not sure how it would be climbing up with heavy backpacks. I happened to come down right where the White Chuck River trail crossed Glacier Creek, and the trail seemed to split on the other side.

The more recently brushed trail to the West was probably made to catch people bushwhacking along the river and bring them to the bridge. The older trail I followed to the South soon came to a washed-out section that was easier to work around on sand bars closer to the river. Didn't see where the Kennedy Ridge trail came down to the river, every time I tried to get close to the trail track on my back-up phone, the dense Willow was a struggle to get through, so I was eventually happy to diverge from the path. Crossing Kennedy Creek was interesting with a dog, and I would have loved to look for the Kennedy Hot Springs, after hearing that they were resurfacing after being buried in ten feet of mud for 21 years, but it was getting late and I was weary of having my boots full of water from two days of swishing through wet brush. There was a huge log, easy for my dog to cross a bit upstream, but I couldn't figure out how to get over the washed-out section and overgrowth on the other side, and didn't realize that the trail I needed skirted the larger washout just upstream from there. There were some people-passable smaller trunks piled up near the White Chuck, and crossing there, it took a short scramble uphill to avoid another washout on the White Chuck side to join the White Chuck River trail climbing up to the PCT. I'll edit and add more trail details and cleaned-up tracks when I have time to get the maps out.

For the mile of the hike, the trail is in great shape but as you head down towards river level is it very overgrown with berries and grasses at waist to shoulder height. It was hard to see my dog in front of me (although she is a corgi). The overgrowth cleared up once we were back in the trees but returned. Based on advice from another hiker who said the overgrowth got even worse, we turned around.

This is a trail with light traffic even on the best of days but seems to have no destination.  It has all types of forest from old growth to second growth of all ages.  Very little damage this winter and whatever trees did fall have been cleared.  It now has a destination and access to the river.  At five miles from the west end there is a big tree of approximately 11 feet diameter.  Branch path to the tree is flagged.  If no flag is spotted it is a short distance further on from a swampy spot in the trail.  The tree is very difficult to spot when on the trail.  It is hidden by some smaller closer to trail trees.  It is in a grove of old growth trees.  A short half mile beyond is a signed camp site.  If you go to the river side edge of the camp, there is a steep hill.  It is not easy but go down this hill and see the flags leading to a beach on the river.  Great place for lunch.  From this site it is 2 miles further to the end of the trail.  The White Chuck River Road is washed out 2 miles downstream from the east trail head.