Grove of the Patriarchs Loop, Silver Falls Loop — Wednesday, Jun. 1, 2022

As we've done for the past few years to kick off our summer hiking season at Mt. Rainier Jeno and I did the Grove of the Patriarchs trail and the Silver Falls loop.  We arrived at the Grove parking area at 6:45 with one car there ahead of us.  The bathrooms are clean and stocked.  The Grove trail is closed at the bridge.  We knew that  and of course ALLOFUS in their recent trip report mentioned it as well but we wanted to see if the bridge was fenced off or removed or what so we headed down the trail to the bridge.

There are a couple of logs down that you need to duck under and there are a number of signs up starting in the parking lot saying the trail is closed.  They become more frequent when you get to the bridge.   We were surprised to see it still in place.  It's leaning in a few spots and some of the foot boards are out in spots but it is still there.   We did notice on the west side the ground is sliding away from the looks of it.  The MRNP website says the bridge will be closed for the next two years so plan accordingly.

We then headed back to the parking lot, crossed Stevens Canyon Road which is closed at the parking lot and started down the Silver Falls loop trail.  As we expected the water was roaring and flowing this morning.  We noticed there are a number of social trails down to various viewpoints on the way to the falls which we avoided and there is one really good and NP approved viewing area where you can get pretty close to the falls.  We went down there where the spray was flying.  We then continued down the trail for a short ways to the bridge that crossed the Ohanapecosh River.  We crossed paths with the person who had parked ahead of us a couple of times this morning, once being at the overlook past the bridge.  We talked to her for a bit before continuing to the campground.

There were a handful of campers there and some people out and about.  Please note only the east side of the campground is open currently.  The bridge is blocked off to motorized traffic.  We talked to one camper who told us they thought the west side of the campground was closed due to trees being down.

After a break at the bridge we continued on the Silver Falls loop on the quiet side as I call it seeing the one hiker going the opposite way but that was it for hikers on the trail this morning.  When we got back to the parking lot it was just our car and her car there.

The south side of Highway 123 from Cayuse Pass has some serious snow on each side of the road.   I can see why Highway 410 is still closed for now.   Please be aware there is a large repaving project between Greenwater and Enumclaw on 410.   They are paving about a 5-6 mile stretch of the road.   We got stopped for about 20 minutes on the way back as they are using a pilot car to guide everyone thru that area.

Stay safe everyone.  See you on the trail.  SR