Tahoma Creek, Indian Henry's Hunting Ground via Tahoma Creek & Tahoma Creek Suspension Bridge - Emerald Ridge Loop — Friday, Aug. 16, 2019

Walked up the Westside Road to take a peek at the results of the glacial outburst last week and found the Tacoma Creek trail completely swallowed up. We missed the trailhead by about 50 feet (the sign is about 50 feet off the road in the forest) but knew we were in the right place based on the washout debris on the main road. A huge amount of debris from the flood was deposited just a few hundred feet from the trailhead, and water has washed out the trail from there to the road. I couldn’t tell where the trail was previously, but here are a few photos from around where we lost what looked to once be a trail. We weren’t feeling confident to explore too far, as the mud was still soft and rocks were still settling. It would be challenging to impossible to follow this trail from what I could see.

In a brighter direction, the debris is CRAZY! Every inch of mud has a different consistency, some of it dry and crumbled, some like thick clay which dries to a white powder (might explain why the river is milky white right now). Piles of rocks big and small look they have dropped out of the sky or fallen from someone’s pockets. Trees sticking out of the ground at crazy angles all over the place...

The tree picture shows the high water mark from the flood, and the tree itself was buried in probably 2+ feet of mud. The other photos are looking towards where I would guess the trail used to go. Note the log damn that caught a lot of the branches, and the tiered sand bank from the changing water levels (and also a new Creek in the area? It doesn’t look like it has always swung that far towards the trail.)