The warmest day of the year so far proved to be too much to stay home and do yard work so hiking was in order. Some friends that live in north King County wanted to go with me and as everything up Mountain Loop is currently cut off or under snow I-90 became an easy choice for this outing. This would be the first trip to this trail for all of us. We were greeted with many cars at the trail head but as it turns out many of those hikers must have gone up the adjacent CCC or Taylor River Trails. Just a note about FSR 56 that takes you to the trail. It is BRUTAL! I had little trouble in my SUV but that said I had to crawl across some of the many, many potholes on the road. SUV's fared well, Subaru's did ok and sedans struggled up the road and I can only imagine the carnage it did to my suspension.
We set off on the trail shortly before 11am and loved the really cool bridge that crosses the Middle Fork Snoqualmie before turning upstream. The trail followed the river for a bit but soon cut back into the forest and climbed up gently for a bit. We soon came across the first of many WTA volunteers working on the first 2 miles of this trail. THANK YOU! All blown downs have been removed on the first 2 miles or so along with the crew repairing a section of hill that had experienced severe erosion. On the hike in I was surprised that we spent a lot of time out in the sun. The snow capped mountains looked great under the blue skies and sun! The forest was green, cool and mossy and was shady and pleasant on the way back. We passed hikers occasionally but for a weekend and being off I-90 the crowd wasn't terrible. We kept a quick pace on the gently rolling trail but experienced blowdowns, mudholes and a washed out section of trail in the third mile we covered. All the obstacles were fairly easy to get around.
At 3 miles we dropped down on the river again and found people had stopped at the first opportunity. We continued up another 1/4 mile or so before we found a spot to take in lunch on the river shore. We had a fine mix of sun and shade where we ended up and a great view of one of the snow capped mountain ridges. After a hot lunch made with my pack stove it was time to head back too soon. Can't wait for more days like this in the months ahead!
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