An overall easy but completely saturated hike on what ended up being a pretty nice day. With all of the recent rain and snowmelt the majority of this trail was underwater. It looks like this is on what tends to be a wet hike anyways since most of it has a raised board walk but there were parts of that that were underwater that would have been knee deep had I stepped on it. That being said, when I tried to find a way around one of these spots and ended up mid shin deep in muck when I stepped on what I thought was solid but was not.

Roads were clear of snow but they were ROUGH. As soon as you leave the Mountain Loop Highway the pot holes are large and frequent. There are stretches of road that aren’t too bad but my average speed the entire way up was no more than 5-10mph and that was with my Tundra. I saw a few sedans parked along the side of the road about half way up. Not sure where their owners were, but the vehicles were far from the trailhead.

Lastly, there are several shooting pits along this forest service road. I didn’t hear anything on my way up but on the last mile or so on my way back to my truck there were lots of rounds being fired. At one point somebody was not shooting at the pit but somewhere close to the trail head. I heard 6 rounds go off that we’re obviously close, one of which was close enough that I heard the ricochet zip through the woods not to far from me. THIS IS NOT OK!!!! As a gun owner myself that likes to go into the woods every now and then I implore everybody out there to please, please PLEASE shoot responsibly and encourage everybody you know to do so as well. There is every bit as much chance one of those rounds could have hit myself or my dog as there is anything else in the woods.

By the time I got back to the trailhead there was no sign of whoever had been doing it. My truck was the only vehicle in the lot and I didn’t see any shell casings.

Roads to the trailhead are a bit rough and definitely require some clearance and patience around potholes but there wasn’t any snow. Trail is in great shape, and bugs weren’t bad at all. Wood planks that line the trail are slippery, so wear good shoes and take it slow. Came across a couple snow piles on the trail but they were well packed and almost gone. Great hike for the family!

We could not make it to the trailhead. Snow covering the road makes it impassable shortly after the first junction.

This looked like a great candidate for a hike on a sunny day but the road wouldn't let us there. The first 2.5 miles are quite rough to begin with - definitely not a job for standard vehicle. At the first junction, shortly after the sign there is a lot of snow on the road and we turned around. 

It may be theoretically possible to find a place to park at the junction and hike to the trailhead but we just went on another hike.

About 2-4 feet of snow covering the road still a mile and a half from the trailhead.  Chose not to continue since I was on my own and didn’t want to risk it. 

We couldn't make it up the road to the trailhead in our small car. Plan to bring a car with some ground clearance to get up this road.