Nice trail, great for non-taxing mid-winter river gorge hiking.  The gorge is lovely, with serious "rain forest" vibes.  Moss hangs from the trees and blankets the forest floor, abundant ferns, etc.  The trail starts southward then turns southeastward, which on this day was ideal, with the morning sunlight slanting low and dazzling through the trees.  Most of the route is well away from Boulder River, but it does offer good viewpoints of two gorgeous waterfalls.  

Reservations?  

- The trail terminates at a pleasant but unremarkable riverside bend - good camping available but this isn't a "destination hike."

- The trail is damp with several seriously muddy spots, several stream crossings and a few blowdowns to navigate.  None of these were particularly daunting.

- My main reservation is that the trail is, despite its "river trail" moniker," mostly a forest walk with a river gorge soundtrack.  Good for meditative walking, I suppose, but low on sights.

IMO Boulder River is a 3.5 star affair, worth hiking once, probably not twice.

Oh, and the 3.5 miles of road to the trailhead is in pretty good shape, only moderately potholed in the last 1.5 miles.

The road to the TH; passable. Hugh downed tree that had been cut for small/medium sized cars to get through. I drive a Subaru Outback with a topper on and fit like a glove. Bigger cars (wider/taller) will struggle, or not be able to fit. The deeper you get on the road, the more potholes. Some are a lot deeper than they look. 😁

This trail is wet and muddy right now. Multiple mud holes where my foot sunk up to my ankle in mud. I gave up trying to keep my feet wet after the first 2 miles. I wore my smartwools, and brought an extra pair of socks just in case (thanks to other reviewer for that advice!)
I also sprained my ankle on a really slick rock, so trekking poles are advised from me heh.

There are multiple downed trees/areas where the trail gets tight and narrow, nothing impassable for me (am 5’10”) but could see shorter folks needing a hand getting up and over the bigger blowdowns. (Tried to include pics of all the obstacles)

The waterfalls and river are roaring right now with all this rain we’ve been getting, and it is spectacular. We are so lucky to have bodies capable to see these beautiful earthly creations. ❤️

Very quiet hike. I went 6.5 miles before ever seeing another person, was at the TH @ 8:40ish, finished up right before 2pm.

Overall, great hike, and was a fantastic way to ring in 2025!

I drive past the sign that points to 'Boulder River Trail' all the time every time I make my way towards the North Cascades. With avalanche dangers being moderate to very high and heavy rain in the forecasts, I opted to hike in the lower elevations. This trail did not disappoint - the waterfalls and the river were both raging. With that being said, the trail was definitely muddy and wet.

Getting to the trailhead was straightforward. Google Maps will take you directly to the small to medium sized parking lot. I said medium because if everyone parks well, you could easily fit 10 cars. But perhaps that is actually considered small. There is no privy at the trailhead but on the way to the parking lot, there is a sign on the left side of the forest road indicating that this will be the last privy you see. It was 3 miles from the parking lot.

As noted in previous trip reports, there is a downed tree that have been sort of sawed and moved out of the road but it still took up about 50% of the road (see last photo). Wider vehicles might struggle to go past this point and it happened early on. Pretty much right when you lose sight of the farm house and enter the forest.

This trail was indeed a pleasant surprise. I saw 4 groups on the way in and didn't see anyone else on the way out. Talk about solitude. There were a few downed trees in the beginning of the trail, all within the first mile. They weren't difficult to cross but definitely requires a bit of easy climbing or ducking down to get past them. The first major waterfalls were about 1.2 mile into the trail. This was also the first river access point.

I spent some time taking photos and soaking in the views - no pun intended. It was a very wet day and the rain began to pick up as I was wrapping up the photos. I continued on - the trail wasn't so bad after the first waterfalls but get progressively wetter as you hike on. As noted in previous trip reports as well, part of the trail became small streams (see last photo). Waterproof shoes and rain pants highly recommended. I had neither but still survived. At some point, I gave up on trying to rock skip and embraced the streams because some of them were impossible to stay dry from.

All in all, this was a perfect hike to do on a rainy day. You don't come here for mountain views. You come here to get blasted by rain, question yourself a little while enjoying the sounds of rain, river, and your own footsteps. I feel like this trail is sort of underrated but very happy that I chose to do this on a typical moody and wet PNW afternoon!

Additional tree fall and some earth movement has occured at the exisiting problem spot on the access road. Techincally still passable for smaller vehicles (9 ft of road width) though I would not recommended it. Expect the hill will continue to erode and the trees will continue to move downhill with winter rains.  

Ventured out for a hike on the Boulder River trail on the day after Christmas, even though it was quite rainy.

There was an early blow own on French Creek Road that has been cleared, but it is still quite narrow to get around (it felt tight in our little Prius). There were a few more blow downs that have been cleared after that, but none that really posed a problem. Aside from that, the road did have some potholes, but nothing too troublesome.

There were no other cars at the trailhead when we got there, and no one when we finished, so we had the trail to ourselves. Perhaps we were the only ones foolish enough to hike in that consistent rain.

I marked the the trail as having a few blow downs, and those are all pretty much at the beginning, but not too difficult to get past. After that, the trail was is good condition. Although saying that the was water on the trail would be an understatement. Accept that your feet will get wet and just plow right through the puddles and stream crossings.

The waterfalls were lovely and the river was raging from all the rain and made for a nice hike to always have it in ear shot.

We didn't go all the way to the backcountry camp site and turned around a mile out from it because we were just a bit too soaked, so I can't comment on conditions there.

While it was a wet and rainy day, this is a pretty pleasant trail and we did enjoy getting out.