Garfield Ledges, Oxbow Loop Trail — Thursday, Mar. 30, 2023

Today we tried hiking out on the Snoqualmie Middle Fork road and had two great early spring hikes.  The road is clear of all debris and has been repaved over the crushed gravel area before the 2 dips.  Our first destination was Garfield Ledges, the road seriously deteriorates after the Middle Fork parking lot. The road is extremely potholed on both sides of the Taylor River bridge and could eat sedan type cars. The vault toilets are open and stocked with supplies. It was 47 degrees with mostly sunny skies when we started out just after 10:00AM. Trip reports from last weekend indicated snow on Garfield Ledges but it has completely melted out.  The trail was in great condition and we had it all to ourselves.  Once at the ledges we took a few photo ops to capture the great the view under partially cloudy skies.  We passed our first hikers of the day when we were almost back to our vehicles.  Our next stop was the Oxbow Loop trail.  Many more folks were out enjoying this loop dappled in sun and green sprouting up everywhere.  A few merganser ducks were hanging out in Oxbow pond and we heard several woodpeckers knocking in the area.  To add more mileage we crossed the road and walked up the Bessmer road past the blue gate.  We turned back just before the logging  staging area  where the road intersects with the CCC trail and ended up with a 6 mile day.  Another fantastic day out in nature with friends.