Parked at the Bessemer Gate, out of the way.  Walked the Bessemer Road up to where the CCC trail takes off to the left on a nice new bridge.  CCC is in perfect shape.  All creek crossings do-able with a few getting your feet a little wet.  The DNR has been through at some point recently and cut the brush away.

After perhaps 4 miles of easy walking, we found the obvious turnoff for the Green Mountain trail.  Now the climbing starts in earnest.  This is a really good road-to-trail conversion.  Much better than Dirty Harry's Peak, which is a mess of big loose rocks.  This is a very pleasant uphill grade with nicely packed surface.  We hit a small patch of snow right before the nice big bridge, then more as we went up.  By the time we were to the Promontory view points there was perhaps a foot of soft snow-cone snow.  No spikes or other equipment necessary.

On the way back we took the other (.5mile) spur to a viewpoint indicated on my Gaia map.  More snow in this area and we were punching through a foot every step.  The view was underwhelming, but there was a difficult creek crossing along the way to keep things interesting.

On a very warm Sunday, we saw 4 other parties all day.  About 13 miles total.

Had a hard time getting out of bed, so decided to make a quick trip over to the Middle Fork area.  I'd not done the Oxbow Loop before, and decided that yesterday was going to be the day.  Road in was in good condition and free of snow and ice.  There were some sections that had water running over them (very shallow), so watch out for ice if you're there in cooler temps.

Started from the eastern TH (with the outhouse).  Toilets were clean and stocked with TP for all that they were signed that they weren't being maintained daily.  No hand sanitizer, so bring your own if you want it.  Day started out foggy, which with the sunshine, mosses and lichens made for some pretty fantastic scenery!  I didn't make much hiking progress until the fog started to lift as I was too busy enjoying the views.  I am considering renaming the area Mirkwood based on the extreme number of spider webs in the trees and bushes along the loop.

Did the loop counterclockwise, including the marked River Trail that leaves from the SE section of the loop and takes you to a nice beachy area with access to the river, then walked about 0.1 miles down the road (from the western Oxbow trail access point) to Bessemer Road.  Took that up to the CCC Road and went west until I hit Wise Creek before turning around.  This section of the CCC road was in good condition; lots of smaller branches down, but nothing that impeded travel.  Did a bit of pole brushing as I went.  There were a lot of small streams running perpendicular across the trail; all but one were easy to get across without getting your shoes wet.  There was a wider one about 0.5 miles west of where Bessemer Road hits the CCC Road trail that was a little more problematic.  It was too deep to walk across without getting your feet wet and too wide to hop.  There were some rocks you could use to step across, but I was very, very glad to have my poles with me to help with stability. 

Was a gorgeous day to be outside, though a little disconcerting to have it be so warm and to see so little snow out there.  Gaia clocked the day at just over 7 miles with ~650 ft of elevation gain.

We used two cars to do a one-way 9 mile trip.  Started at the main Middle Fork Trailhead parking lot (plenty of room) and ended at the bottom of the Bessemer Road (few spots).

Trail is easy and fast.  No snow, not even much mud.  Perfect duff trail through mossy 2nd growth forest.  A few blowdowns that were easy to step over or duck under.  The bridges and boardwalks are a bit beat up but all were passable.  All creek crossings were manageable with good rocks to hop across.  Didn't even get our boots wet.

Highly recommend the side-trip to the Pratt Balcony.  Very easy to follow old road route to a great overlook of the entire valley.  We encountered a handful of people here; one of which had been tending a fire in the rock cookspot.  

I decided to hit up a new trail for me and head for Green Mountain. I had hoped the forecast for afternoon sun would provide some views, but it was not to be. I did make it up to Absolute Last Promontory, but it was snowing and socked in while I sat there and had lunch, so I had to use my topo map and my imagination to figure out the views.

ROAD / TH: No snow or issues on the Middle Fork Road. I parked at the small lot at Oxbow Loop, where it's only a minute or two to walk over to the Bessemer Road. The bathrooms at Oxbow Loop are open and stocked. Next time I think I would park at the large lot, just to enjoy the fabulous trail that goes between the two lots. This trail has great huge trees, sword ferns, and about the best view you'll get of Russian Butte and the Middle Fork together.

BESSEMER ROAD: Nothing much to report here, the road is in good condition up to the CCC Trail. Just a dusting of snow as you near the CCC. No sign of any further work on the clearing where they have dropped off the bear-proof garbage can.

CCC TRAIL: I turned left on the CCC Trail, immediately crossing Big Blowout Creek on the newish bridge. This section of the trail over to the Green Mountain Trail is in really excellent shape. Given how wet it has been the last week, the trail was not muddy at all, though there was standing water in some places. The drainage work is done really well here. The grade is very gentle and there are lots of mossy trees and streams everywhere to enjoy. There are many rocky cliff faces along the trail as well. Some pretty nice views of Russian Butte and surroundings are had along here too, as the trail is pretty far above the valley bottom.

No issues with brush either - this section seems in a lot better shape than the upper section in that regard. The corridor is very wide with a nice tread.

CREEK CROSSINGS: To entertain myself I counted all the water crossings on the CCC Trail section. There are 36 crossings between the Big Blowout Creek bridge and the Wise Creek bridge. The majority of these are simple step-overs and may not have water at all after a few dry days. I would say only two or three of the crosses are challenging at all, but I crossed them OK without using my poles. Most of the bigger ones have rocks to step on, but don't count on dry feet if your boots aren't waterproof.

Between Wise Creek and Brawling Creek there are 28 more crossings, including the biggest one at Brawling Creek itself. This one is rushing pretty good, but again there are some good rocks to step on that will get you across. There are two more crossings before you reach the Green Mountain Trail.

If you don't like crossing creeks, then maybe this isn't the trail for you, but I found them to be a fun challenge, and certainly a good test of my boots. I did some "drainage engineering" in many places (aka removing leaves and needles) to help things drain properly.

GREEN MOUNTAIN TRAIL: This trail is not marked, so after you pass Brawling Creek and two more creeks you will need to keep a sharp eye out. The trail is fairly obvious though. After a short trail section, you join the old road that starts climbing up Green Mountain. This is a nice road-to-trail conversion that never gets very steep, and has a nice tread and good drainage that keeps the water off the trail. Very little brush to speak of, and when you eventually reach Brawling Creek there is a huge new bridge that was brought in via helicopter a few years ago. A few minutes before you reach this bridge, look to your right into the Brawling Creek gully and you'll see a pretty amazing waterslide falls on the creek. Hard to get a good picture of it though.

There aren't too many views along the Green Mountain Trail until you reach Far Enough Promontory. Absolute Last Promontory is a good place to stop for lunch, I cleared some snow off a boulder and had a nice seat.

SNOW AND GEAR: There was intermittent snow along the CCC Trail, it never got more than about an inch deep. Climbing up Green Mountain, the snow got gradually deeper. It was about 3-4" around the Brawling Creek Bridge, and close to a foot by the time I reached Far Enough Promontory. The snow depth was highly variable with much more out in the open areas. Snowshoes might have been nice on the upper-most sections, but they weren't strictly necessary and I had no problem plowing through the soft new snow with my boots and gaiters.

I carried both spikes and poles today but didn't use either. The snow was too soft for spikes and the terrain wasn't really steep enough for poles.

Fun hike up with Glen99 and SoaringEagle up to South Bessemer Mountain. Just a beautiful day for a hike up to one of the best vistas up the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River!!

We started at 8:35am, parking at the Oxbow Loop trailhead. When we got to the CCC trail we headed in the forest straight up, keeping the creek to our left. We used Glen99's track from his Moolock ascent. Beautiful moss covered open forest up to the road at 1800ft. We then headed up in the open forest to the next switchback, and trail. My right achilles was really bothering me, so we decided to walk the road, instead of heading straight up in the forest.

Road/Trail was snow free up to the saddle between Moolock and Bessemer, which is at around 4000ft. We started to run into continuous snow shortly thereafter, but was never very deep, and was fairly consolidated. The summit of South Bessemer had maybe 10-12" of snow

We took a break at the lower summit and admired the fantastic views. At this lower summit is where we ran into the only other hikers we would see all day. Somehow they passed us when we were going up thru the open forest. It was probably because I was going pretty slow, due to my painful achilles. Not because I was tired or anything!! hahaha!!

We finished at 3:20 pm. Just a beautiful day!! 12.4 miles with 4186ft gain.