Please note the road and trail conditions are for the road to Dingford Creek and the Trail to Tin Cup Joe Falls.
I had a fair bit of time to kill on a rainy Sunday and didn't really have a destination in mind given the weather. I took off for the Middle Fork and went all the way down to the Dingford Creek Trailhead. The road is as bad as people say, but wasn't really a problem in a Jeep. It was very bumpy, with bad potholes, and a few areas where there was a steep drop off, but I made it down the road in about 35 min. At the trailhead I went over and checked out Dingford Creek Falls past the gate from a nice concrete bridge. This is a nice waterfall with no effort to get to. I had an Alpine Lakes Wilderness guide book and pulled it out to see if there were any suggestions for this trailhead and saw a recommendation for Tin Cup Joe Falls. I headed down to the Middle Fork Trail. There is really nice footbridge over the river. I checked out the backcountry campsite less than a mile from the trailhead and it was very nice. Definitely need to come back there. There are some marvelous huge old growth trees on this section of the trail. A little over a mile down you pass over the Cripple Creek bridge. The trail up to the waterfall is very faint but you can tell where it is.
From there it is a very steep, unmaintained trail with tons of blowdowns. I had my small-ish dog with me. He usually likes log hopping and going on an adventure, but after going about half a mile up the trail and crossing 25-30 blowdowns, along with getting soaked from the rain/overgrown brush, he basically refused to go any farther. I didn't find the trail particularly hard to find. There were some markings on trees and cairns that guided the way. WE turned back not because the steepness or the trail conditions (it wasn't as bad as Stegosaurus Butte on those fronts), it was the number of blowdowns and the water, at least today. Alas, I might try to save this for a nicer/drier day. I returned the way I came. Still a fun day out. Only saw 3 other people the whole time.
4.22 miles round trip
718 ft elevation gain.
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