The road to the trailhead is wide and well maintained. There is a long gravel section and no major potholes.
There are two bathrooms at the trailhead with toilet paper.
The trail starts flat and runs along the North Fork Skokomish River. The scenery is gorgeous, and salmonberries are beginning to ripen. This is wide and well maintained. After 3.7ish miles the trail junction to the right heads uphill to Flapjack Lakes. Unfortunately this is narrower and less well maintained. There are multiple blow downs that we had to climb up or crawl under. There is one spot to filter water near the end of the initial switchbacks (approx close to 47.54623, -123.37254 -- the trail curves left facing uphill, and if you take a right instead you will see a large sitting log and the water source). Surprisingly there aren't many other places to filter water heading uphill towards the lakes. There is a large waterfall at one point, but to approach it involved a steep downhill climb off trail, which looked too dangerous. Avalanche lilies are in bloom and most abundant at higher elevations right before the lakes. We also saw purple trillium.
There are multiple campsites around the lake. There are two privies with signs requesting poop only. There is a bear wire at the entrance to the campsites. The campsite map was difficult to read (and not to scale), and we could not find the bear wire that was closer to our camp, so we used the one at the entrance instead. Walking clockwise around the lake, the last campsite (approx 10 o'clock position on the map) was blocked by a very large blowdown that we did not feel comfortable climbing over with full packs.
After setting up camp we headed up towards Gladys Divide. While there was no snow on the trail up to Flapjack Lakes, there were patches of snow on the trail up to Gladys Divide. Ultimately we stopped around 4580' elevation due to conditions. (There were steep slopes we didn't want to slide off of, and another hiker we preciously passed told us she post-holed and also turned around since she did not bring snowshoes). Even though we didn't make it to Gladys Divide, the views of the Sawtooths were stunning. If warm weather comes, Gladys Divide will likely be accessible in the coming weeks and a goal for a future trip.
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