We hiked to the Big Tree. The parking lot was fairly empty on a Sunday. The Middle Fork Road had an inch or two of snow in the morning, but it had melted by the afternoon. Very easy to drive in any case since it is paved and wide.
The first part of the hike (2.7 miles according to the distance sign at the trailhead) is along the river and not hard. It does go up and down a bit but is always clear to follow except one part where you cross some rocks, but the trail just continues ahead as expected. Very pretty with snow cover in the open parts and lots of great trees and moss along the way.
Once you turn away from the river the trail gets rougher. For our mid-winter hike it was a mix of rocks, mud, snow, snowy rocks, muddy snow, rocky mud, etc. It's not clear if it was raining or there was just a lot of water dripping from the trees, but I recommend a waterproof jacket and waterproof shell pants. We didn't need snow gaiters, the snow was not deep at all. The trail is fairly easy to follow although in a few places it helps to lift your head to spot it in the distance rather than just look at the ground.
There is a turnoff to the right for the big tree off the main trail, although actually the turnoff looks more like the main trail while the main trail heads up a hill. Gaia correctly has this marked, with the big tree being the trail that heads towards the river and then dead ends. Less than half a mile from there you will get to a spot where you cross a series of downed logs and then the tree is close by. It is right next to the trail.
I used poles to help getting over some of the trees although that probably wasn't necessary. Overall it took about 3 hours to get to the tree and 2.5 to get back, although we weren't the fastest party. The traihead sign says it is 8.5 miles round trip although my Gaia had it more like 10.
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