Middle Fork Snoqualmie River, Tin Cup Joe Falls — Wednesday, Jun. 3, 2020

The trail is open again and blockade on the other side of the bridge removed (however the expired closure notice is still posted at TH). At about 1.5 miles there is a (mostly) clear path thru the big mudslide. Hopefully, whoever did the chainsawing for the first 2.5 miles (thank you!) will come back and go further up the trail. There are still plenty of blowdowns - all pretty easy to get around/over/under. There are also a few brushy places along the way.

At the Cripple creek bridge, I decided to head up the bootleg trail that showed up on my GAIA map. Talk about blowdowns. Wow! And these are old growth trees - BIG!. I lost the trail a few times and did what work I could with my little folding saw but was only able to make it about 1/2 way up this trail. It would be a great one for the #LostTrails campaign.

TIP: This Tin Cup Joe Falls is more easily accessed from the Dingford Creek TH as described in the Guide.

After lunching near Cripple creek, we headed back down, crossed the bridge and headed towards Dingford. I came to a fresh blowdown of 3 smaller trees that I could manage to clear while Bandit found a place in the moss to take a nap. Continuing towards Dingford, the forest floor opens up and the scenery is wonderful - but there is still the occasional blowdown to contend with. I didn't quite make it to the Dingford bridge as I decided we should turnaround at 3pm. We booked it back to the van by 6pm but not before getting Bandit in the water to rinse off all that mud.