I spent three days at five mile camp, beautiful as usual, no bugs, very few people, trail is in very good shape, dry, a couple of tree's down, rocky, but overall easy hiking. this trail maintenance crew has done a fine job

Annual season opener to that enchanted Duckabush valley. The river's song is your constant companion on this intimate trail with mossy green margins. Before it climbs out of second growth into ancient forest you pass rusting relics of turn of the century logging. At any of the vistas on Big Hump on can hear the lusty calls of grouse, thrush, or the whirring of hummingbirds. It descends back to the vigorous crystal green waters of the Duck at 5 miles. Mabey a dozen blowdowns but none too troublesome. Lights of Seattle visible from atop Big Hump at night.

Early start = solitude. Very nice hike. Still some wildflowers, lots of trillium and those yellow violets (yellowets?) The big hump is still there. Didn't see elk until the drive out.

We were meant to have a fine weekend. I've heard the low lands had cold windy and even snowy weather last weekend, but the Duckabush was our private Shangri-La! We had no precip, partial sun, no wind and fairly warm temps. We saw an elk, fresh bear sign(though no bear) at around 8 miles and no humans in the whole valley except a few short distance day hikers. We made 10 mile camp, though the last half of the trail was unmaintained. A fair amount of downed trees and three major washouts. We lost the trail at two of the washouts for a while. There was a washout between 7 and 8 miles which sort of was the trail. After wandering the shrubs for a while I finally walked through the stream about 500 yards to find the trail exiting out of the stream bed. Absolutely no sign of snow or even recently melted snow though. Nice campsites about every 2 miles, but bearwire only at 10 mile camp. Just before 10 mile camp the trail is obliterated for about 50 yards. Altogether a fine experience!

Thanks to other positive trip reports on this trail, we picked the Duckabush on this sunny, spring day. And we were glad we did. The trail is in excellent condition, no blow-downs (as far as we travelled), little and easily avoidable mud and to our delight, we identified at least 14 blooming wildflowers. Notables included white fawn lilies, chocolate lilies, scarlet paintbrush, wild ginger, calypso lilies and triliums. Had lunch on Big Hump and enjoyed the view. A good time was had by all.