The weather Wednesday afternoon was incredible, so a friend and I decided to finally try hiking the Middle Fork Snoqualmie Trail. Previous trip reports mentioned the terrible road conditions on FR 56. Terrible doesn’t begin to describe how horrible this road is; by the time we reached the trailhead, my friend (who does not usually suffer from motion sickness) said he felt sick! We had originally planned to hike as far as Cripple Creek, because I had heard there is an impressive waterfall near here. Cripple Creek is approximately 4-miles from the trailhead, but we started hiking at 5:15pm. At 6:30, we decided to turn around even though we had not yet reached Cripple Creek. My best estimate is that we hiked between 7-8 miles roundtrip. We arrived back at my Jeep at 8:30pm. Trail conditions varied from gravel to dirt to mud. The major obstacles include having to ford a large creek roughly 2.5-miles from the trailhead; 3 spots near mile 3, where the trail tightly hugs the riverbank, and a washout near our turnaround spot. Although we were disappointed that we were unable to complete the hike we had originally planned, we hope to return soon when we have more time to complete the entire hike.

This was a lovely little hike! We didnt get all the way to the end because my daughter (18 months) was done hiking but we got a little over half way there. The trail is great except for one very muddy part (very slippery mud and the rocks and logs to cross are also covered in the slippery mud) the mud was a few inches deep. But that was the only difficult part. Its a wonderful trail to explore while we await the snow to melt higher up! The road is as bad as ever :( We did see alot of regular cars but I personally wouldnt if you can avoid it as the road is very likely to ruin your shocks and suspension. The potholes are large and nearly all are unavoidable as they are all across the road. *The downstream hike was completely shut off when we got there due to blasting on the trail. I would call the ranger station before setting off if you are considering that side of the hike*

Like many other reports, the road to the trail head is littered with sections of crater sized holes in a few spots. However, there were all types of cars at the trail head parking area. I had been up there the week before doing some trail work for WTA and it was nice to be on the trail as a user today. Hopefully the steps that are in work can be done soon as that was the muddiest place on the entire hike. It was just a wonderful hike with so much to take in. I'll definitely come back and hopefully get an earlier start to see more of this spectacular river valley.

The road from the highway is not so much a road as a Swiss cheese of craters. What starts out as a fun sort of slalom game amongst the potholes soon becomes a tedious crawl to find the most shallow holes to go through. As many others have attested to, you can make it to the trail head if you are careful, but your vehicle will not thank you. The trail is also suffering a bit from storm damage. Among other problems, there's a patch of very muddy boulders near the start of the trail that is best avoided if at all possible. Walk around if you can or bring your own set of planks to lay in place, or perhaps a rope swing. Believe me when I say that they hurt when you scrape your face across them. It should also be noted that if you're expecting to buy a parking day pass at the trail head, that's not possible at the moment. Fortunately, we did not get a ticket as a result. Other than that, it was a nice hike.

The warmest day of the year so far proved to be too much to stay home and do yard work so hiking was in order. Some friends that live in north King County wanted to go with me and as everything up Mountain Loop is currently cut off or under snow I-90 became an easy choice for this outing. This would be the first trip to this trail for all of us. We were greeted with many cars at the trail head but as it turns out many of those hikers must have gone up the adjacent CCC or Taylor River Trails. Just a note about FSR 56 that takes you to the trail. It is BRUTAL! I had little trouble in my SUV but that said I had to crawl across some of the many, many potholes on the road. SUV's fared well, Subaru's did ok and sedans struggled up the road and I can only imagine the carnage it did to my suspension. We set off on the trail shortly before 11am and loved the really cool bridge that crosses the Middle Fork Snoqualmie before turning upstream. The trail followed the river for a bit but soon cut back into the forest and climbed up gently for a bit. We soon came across the first of many WTA volunteers working on the first 2 miles of this trail. THANK YOU! All blown downs have been removed on the first 2 miles or so along with the crew repairing a section of hill that had experienced severe erosion. On the hike in I was surprised that we spent a lot of time out in the sun. The snow capped mountains looked great under the blue skies and sun! The forest was green, cool and mossy and was shady and pleasant on the way back. We passed hikers occasionally but for a weekend and being off I-90 the crowd wasn't terrible. We kept a quick pace on the gently rolling trail but experienced blowdowns, mudholes and a washed out section of trail in the third mile we covered. All the obstacles were fairly easy to get around. At 3 miles we dropped down on the river again and found people had stopped at the first opportunity. We continued up another 1/4 mile or so before we found a spot to take in lunch on the river shore. We had a fine mix of sun and shade where we ended up and a great view of one of the snow capped mountain ridges. After a hot lunch made with my pack stove it was time to head back too soon. Can't wait for more days like this in the months ahead!