We arrived at the Taylor Mountain Forest trailhead at about 9 am. There were about 8 cars at the TH. There were a few parking spots left in the first lot and plenty of room in the trailer lot. The vault toilet is locked. The Issaquah - Hobart Road was bare, wet pavement. The TH has compact snow and ice from 0" to 2" deep. Didn't have trouble driving in the TH with AWD and snow tires.
We planned a loop of the Holder Ridge trail, the Holder Knob Trail, Road K, Road I and Road A. We found a mix of snow, ice and bare patches on the Holder Ridge Trail and Road A below 900 ft elev. Above 900 feet it might be cold enough that the melt/freeze cycle isn't happening. The snow was about 4" deep. Some of us used spikes out of caution. But boots with a good tread worked well and didn't collect ice balls when the morning got warmer. About 1/2 mile out we found the first of several down trees on Holder Ridge and Holder Knob trails. We managed to get over or under all of them without too much trouble. We cleared the small downs that we could move. We walked Road K north along the swamp. After about 1/4 mile we came to small creek running pretty fast and deeper than our boots. Along the west edge of the road we found some rocks we could hop with some effort. We kept going north to the intersection with Road I. There were footprints on Road K to Holder Creek, but none on Road I. It was pretty steep and there were a few down trees. We got to Road A and found out why people hadn't come this way. Road A is signed closed due to instability (aka landslide?). The road surface looked very uneven and covered with brush. So we went back down Road I and took Road K to the lower portion of Road A. We walked Road A west back to the TH. Got back about 1:15. Covered about 7 miles and 950 gain. We saw several others hiking, usually with dogs that were all really nice.
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