Beaver Lake, White Chuck Bench — Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020

(Apologies, I uploaded 4 pictures to the report but the WTA server rejected them as two large; first time I have encountered that problem.)

Had done several weeks of hiking along Puget Sound and wanted to see what winter had done to mountain trails, so headed to two low-lying trails just outside of Darrington, Beaver Lake and White Chuck Bench (upper end).  Beaver Lake had a portion of the trail wiped out at about 3/4 mile where a large tree and a slide have fallen over the trail.  I managed to scramble over the fallen tree, but it was not easy given the steepness of that section of the trail.  The trail now ends on the trestle bridge over Beaver Lake, where a few trees have taken out a section of the bridge.  You can still see the vast beaver ponds and much evidence of active beaver work on nearby trees, but unfortunately this blockage limits the hike to 1.5 miles one-way only, cutting off the last half-mile and the grove of old-growth cedars which are right after the trestle bridge.

Skunk cabbage are just starting to poke their heads up in the wet bogs before Beaver Lake.  Heavy snow started to fall in the second half of the hike, but there was only a dusting along the trail.  Only saw one other party of two during the short outing.

Then headed up the White Chuck River Road (Forest Road 23) ~5.5 miles to check out the White Chuck Bench trail from the upper section.  The road had about 6-8 inches of packed snow in the middle (but clear tracks on either side) in the last half mile or so, so high-clearance vehicles are required to reach the upper-end trailhead (there is a trailhead at both ends of this ~6 mile trail).  Several logs that had been blocking the road looked like they had been recently cut out and removed.  

 The trail was fairly recently completed and is in fine shape save several trees down in the 2 miles I did and small slump at about 1/2 mile in.  The new trail is an engineering feat and climbs high and away from the river in order to avoid future trail washouts, but the river is visible from various vantage points along the way and you can generally hear it.  Only a dusting of snow for most of this section, except for the first few yards right after the trailhead, where it was 4-5 inches deep but had many human tracks. I had done the same trail from the other end in December, and it's great to have a new fairly long trail that is largely accessible in the winter.  It's a beautiful moss-carpeted forest for much of the way.  Nobody was on this trail today.