Tahoma Creek Suspension Bridge - Emerald Ridge Loop — Sunday, Jun. 14, 2020

This morning we planned to hike the loop from the west side road. We arrived and started the hike around 0800. The morning was cool/crisp and lightly raining. We elected to go with rain jackets and leave the rain pants. Good boots are a MUST! The first mile to the Tahoma Creek Trailhead was uneventful and an easy road walk. The following 2 miles up the creek was a smattering of route finding, stream crossings, climbing over logs and bushwacking. The trail had been washed out by the August(?) Glacier outburst making most of the trail impossible to use. However near the halfway point we found the trail as it veered off to the left and followed it the remainder up to the suspension bridge. This trail has clearly not been maintained and in many areas the trail was overgrown. We arrived at the suspension bridge in decent time considering the difficult passing. The rest of the trail started to quickly get sketchy. 

As we continued on the loop around Emerald ridge the trail was quickly overtaken by snow. Feet of snow. Thankfully we had boots and cold weather gear as well as a GPS unit for route finding. The snow was crusty with an ice layer about 6" down and the hills were fairly steep and would give way. One in the party had boots with no traction and a weak shank and kept sliding around. From the high point to the South Puyallup River Campground involved a lot of difficult route finding, stream crossings, sliding, and falls. Additional traction would have been amazing, microspikes or even YakTrax. 

Of course the campground offered amazing views of the Andesite columns, then the hike back out was a fairly flat or downhill cruise. We got back to the car in the 4 oclock hour, which I felt was good considering the amount of route finding we had to do. We were slowed a LOT due to this. I imagine the trial will have cleared up a large amount in the next 2-3 weeks.