Left Bellingham at 8:00a and were to the trailhead by 9:40a. The last 2 miles of the forest road have quite a few pot holes, but in a sedan, you could easily make it up taking your time. Parking lot was mostly full with a few spots left (probably 20+ cars there). Bathrooms were stocked with TP and bins with extra TP in the setting of limited park ranger staff.
Trail to Park Butte Lookout is in great shape. First river crossing took a little rock hopping, but feet stayed dry and second part has a metal bridge over it. We came back down on the Scott Paul Trail, so not sure how much quicker these crossing were running later in the day.
Despite a full parking lot, the trail didn't feel busy. Passed groups here and there but not bad. No bugs. Flowers are blooming some. Once a group came down, we had the lookout to ourselves while we had some snacks.
On the way down we decided to detour and add a few miles by doing the Scott Paul Trail which is also in excellent shape and beautiful. The suspension bridge over the river is beautiful. One smaller section of a river you need to hop across.
In the end, it was 11.7 miles. We were back to the car by 1:40p and back home to Bellingham by 3:30p with a stop for snacks along the way.
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