Rode to Tahoma Creek trailhead and stashed bike.  Hiked to the suspension bridge then most of Wonderland trail along Emerald Ridge but didn't do the loop. This made my route about 9 miles, 2600' gain per Gaia there and back. 

As previous trip reports state, you'll want a map/GPS for Tahoma Creek due to the multiple washouts and erosion that have caused this trail to close; multiple sketchy bits because of this. The trail is either in the woods or skirts right along them.  There are sporadic cairns to help.

Snow becomes consistent halfway up to Emerald Ridge, you'll want at the very least poles and map since there's no boot path to follow. Running water on trail under snow at places so be aware of this and very real risk of punching through to the trail, around downed trees and rocks at certain parts. 

Arrived to parking area to about 8 cars but saw no one else there or back once off the road. 

The Westside Road parking area is now just before the Dry Creek crossing, not after. Parking is a lot more limited.

On the MRNP website, the Tahoma Creek Trail is both “closed” and “not recommended”. More helpful is the description as “an area with high risk of geohazards such as flooding and debris flows”.

The Tahoma Creek Trail is washed out in several places, definitely worse that previous washouts. If you find the trail early on, you will discover that it leads you back into the creek bed in one washout after another. The best approach is to walk the creek bed for the first mile, not even looking inland to find the trail. (For much of the way, climbing from the creek bed to the forest is not even practical.) But at about one mile, you can even see the trail from the creek bed, where it is easily accessible. Be watchful, and go there. If you travel too far in the creek bed, the trail starts climbing quickly, and you will have missed it. So this mile of creek bed walking is the exposure to possible geohazards.

Once you’re on the trail, there are a couple of places where the trail gets quite dicey, half of it washed away, leaving a steep drop-off. But we would later see the same thing along the Wonderland Trail after Emerald Ridge, and that trail is maintained! Once you’re on the trail, most of it is just fine. And when you join the Wonderland Trail, be sure to take a short side trip to the Tahoma Creek Suspension Bridge. That’s always the highlight of the trip for me.

The climb up to Emerald Ridge opens up to a desolate but beautiful landscape, with numerous moraines and eskers visible. One finger of the Tahoma Glacier, then another, come into view. At Emerald Ridge, you can look down onto the grit-covered Tahoma Glacier and see the muddy brown water gushing out from under it. The water is the same color as some of the rocks, so it is hard to see in a still photo. My third photo is a closeup of this muddy water.

The trail follows the muddy South Puyallup River downstream. Where the South Puyallup Trail begins, the Wonderland Trail heads north on a stout wooden bridge over the river. It’s a short distance from the trail junction, and worth a look.

A few more minutes down the trail, there is a striking vertical rock face of columnar andesite on your left, visible from the trail.

When you reach the next junction, you have a choice. You can take a short access trail to the Westside Road, or follow the Round Pass Trail 0.6 mile to Round Pass. Either way, you must gain 335 feet. The trail is in the shade.

Once on Westside Road, follow the circuitous road 2.6 miles to the Tahoma Creek Trailhead, and then the final 1.4 miles to the parking area.

We headed out of South Puyallup backcountry camp (permit only) early to catch sunrise at Emerald Ridge. Remember to water up because there is little to be found on the Ridge.

In the process we were not yielded a lot of trail etiquette uphill with all the trail runners coming down. If you are going up, it is polite to stop get off trail, cover your face and let the uphill folks come up. Few did and most just kept running off trail onto the delicate plants.

Emerald Ridge is stunning clockwise. The Tahoma Glacier carved out deeply to the north and the colors of the rock and soil are in colorful contrast to the greens and blues of the mountain sky. It is breathtaking.

We saw a lot of bear scat on the south side of the ridge just ahead of the Tahoma Suspension Bridge.

Tahoma used to have an unmaintained trail that led to the Westside Rd we could rock hop or butt scoot across logs to get to but the park is really advising not too and has put up new signage this year to not go on this trail.

There is a nice water access however just a few 100 yards down the Tahoma unmaintained trail that you can use prior to heading to Indian Henry's.

Combo key swap/bike shuttle to make this trek. I started in Longmire, my partner rode a bike up Westside Road and left at South Puyallup trailhead for me to get at end of my day, and ride back to meet him at gate. 

Thanks to being in mostly constant motion, the bugs were not too bad, but really got me when I stopped for a break right around where the Wonderland Trail met the Rampart Ridge and Van Trump trails. Other stops were not as bad because they were more in the open breeze. 

Very light snow around Emerald Ridge. My partner's loop was a bit longer, including Klapatche Park, where there was lots of snow. 

Note to would-be runners: though this is a beautiful loop, it's not great running - trail is pretty rocky throughout. 

This is a magical, lesser-known loop in Mount Rainier National Park which covers a wide variety of terrain and has some really standout features and views. Additionally, due to the mileage and its location, you will probably not run into many other people in this loop. (We saw 1 backpacker the whole time).

Getting There

I'd never been down West Side Road, but there is a pretty obvious turn for it just passed the Nisqually entrance station on the southwest side of the park.
This road is well maintained with no concerns for low clearance vehicles. The "trailhead" is the end of the drivable road, a few miles in. There are no National Park amenities here - closest are probably the Honey Buckets in Longmire. We arrived around 8:45 am on Thursday and there was one other vehicle.

West Side Road

To start this hike, you will need to follow the closed road for a few miles. There is a gate prohibiting cars from passing but it is open to hikers and bikers. It is beautiful this time of year, following the valley of Tahoma Creek, with waterfalls to your left and a healthy flowing creek on your right. Wildflowers can be seen here as well.

The "washout" which caused the road closure appears pretty unremarkable ~1 mile in. A little under 2 miles along the road you will hit the turnoff to the Tahoma Creek Trail, marked by a barrel for waste disposal. The trail entrance is easy to miss, but the barrel not so much.

Tahoma Creek Trail

This trail is not maintained due to a huge recent washout. In the current "trail" you can simply follow the creek bed all the way up to the first major attraction, the Tahoma Creek Suspension Bridge.
Don't worry about losing the trail here; as long as you are following the water, you will eventually make it there.

We opted out of bushwhacking to find the actual trail, and instead rock hopped our way all the way up the creek to the bridge. This method requires some fast feet and some minor scrambling in parts, but there were no large creek crossings and mostly larger boulders which make for easier traversal. Poles would definitely be useful along this stretch for balance.
After about 2 miles there will be a waterfall on your right, and shortly afterwards the Tahoma Creek Suspension Bridge will come into view. We had gained ~1300' from the trailhead by this point.

Tahoma Creek Suspension Bridge

The bridge is pretty amazing and a decently remote and secluded attraction in Rainier NP. It connects in with the Wonderland Trail, and given the challenges getting to it, we were the only ones there when we visited. If approaching from the creek bed, you will need to do some pretty challenging class 3ish rock scrambling to make it up to the actual bridge. Disclaimer: Do not do this if it is out of your comfort zone; it may be much more prudent to backtrack and/or bushwhack into the woods to find the true (overgrown) Tahoma Creek trail. This is mentioned in one of the below reports, but is not what we ended up doing.
The bridge itself is in beautiful shape, though it is very unnerving getting out into the middle of it where it can become pretty shakey. The boards are all stable. Follow the signs and limit the crossing to one person at a time.

Emerald Ridge

On the west side of the bridge, you will connect with the first stretch of well-maintained trail, the Wonderland Trail. It's about 2 miles up to Emerald Ridge from here and another 1500'.
The switchbacks start pretty early, and it is a moderate, but well spread out incline. About halfway up to the Ridge the trail began having intermittent snow covering before being completely covered. The snow is soft and slushy this time of year, so we did use our microspikes. I had poles, but also never felt any need to use them.

Follow the snowfield up (just keep heading towards the ridgeline). The tracks were pretty weak, so we ended up just relying mostly on GPS to guide us up to the ridge. The visibility during this section was 10 feet in front of us, which was unfortunate.
Topping out at the ridge line was still pretty cool. After following the ridge for a quarter of a mile you will begin the 2 mile descent down to the next section of trail, the South Puyallup trail.

There is off-and-on snow throughout this section. Make sure to have your GPS guide as well here, as we followed some tracks that took us completely off trail. Once we realized this we ended up having to bushwhack to get back to the main trail, which significantly slowed our progress. After making it back to the main trail, we made good time heading down until the trail intersected with the South Puyallup Trail.

South Puyallup Trail

At the intersection continue straight to hop off the Wonderland Trail and onto the South Puyallup. The intersection is very well signed.
This trail follows the river through beautiful trees, dropping your down from an overhead view to get you right up next to the river. Pretty soon you'll see the backpacker camp, which had nobody in it when we passed. Near that area is an amazing attraction of this hike, the andesite pillars. These have to be seen to be believed, but they are basically hexagonal pillars a la Devil's Postpile. The patterns and waves they form are enticingly beautiful and stunning. The rest of the trail continues its descent through very tall trees until you hit a junction for Round Pass. Take this junction.

Round Pass

The Round Pass connector trail is 0.6 miles but gives you another 300-400' elevation gain, so be warned. It's a bit of a kicker towards the end of your hike.
It eventually breaks back out on to West Side road, about 1 mile from where you entered Tahoma Creek trail.

West Side Road

Head down this windy road, past the poop barrel, and back to your car.

Overall, this was an awesome loop which gave an amazing taste of Mount Rainier NP without even requiring The Mountain to be out. We clocked in at 13.5 miles and 3100' of gain total in 6 hours and 30 mins. While not incredibly challenging, this trail offers a bit more than your standard National Park tourist hike, with varied terrain and beautiful views, as well as standout attractions of the Suspension Bridge and anthracite columns.

Shout out to Alice and Brian who we ran into at the end of their Wonderland journey. Great to meet you both!