Road is open and full of potholes as usual. It was a perfect day for this hike. Only saw 4 backpackers coming down from Goldmeyer and 1 solo hiker all day. I've only done this hike once 3-4 years ago. There are several blast areas and re-routes, kudos to all the hard work that has been done. Flowers are popping out everywhere and trail is in great shape, very little mud. I wore gaiters anticipating tons of mud. There was a warm breeze most of the day. Lots of birds and bees flying about.

The Middle Fork road is open to just past the Taylor River bridge, about 10 miles in from the Mailbox Peak trailhead. Ignore the sign there that says "road closed 5.6 miles ahead" - not true! Road is in reasonable good condition, no problem with my Prius. Parked near the middle fork bridge and headed upstream on the middle fork trail. The trail through the huge rock slides from last year (about 3 miles in) has been reconstructed, though no bridge has been built across the largest creek. A huge fallen tree that could have served as a bridge was cut into several pieces instead. So some rock hopping is required. About 4 miles in the trail is partly washed out near the river, it's a little muddy, but no problem to get through. The rest of the way to Cripple Creek and the Dingford Creek Bridge is in good shape. The rest of the way to Goldmeyer Hotsprings is also in generally good shape, with several logs across the trail and a few washouts, but nothing that poses any problem to the avid hiker or trail runner. Most important, there is a nice log bridge across Burnboot Creek, just before the hot springs. The last time I was at the hot springs (years ago) you had to cross the Middle Fork (to get to the road on the north side of the valley) on a questionable fallen log. Now there is a new bridge across that's suitable for mountainbikes and horses. Sidenote: a section of the old PCT that goes from Goldmeyer Hotsprings up to Red Mountain Pass and down to Snoqualmie Pass (via Commonwealth basin) is not on any map that's not at least 20 years old, but 6 years or so ago someone completely brushed it out and it is now easily hikable. However, it is hard to find from the middle fork trail as there are no trail signs. It is easy to find if you know how: On the south side of Burnboot creek (the far side from the hot springs) there is a sign on a tree that says "Burnboot Creek". Start at that sign and head upstream along along Burnboot creek for about 200 - 300 yards, following a visible, but clearly not officially maintained trail. After about 200 yards you'll see a sign that says "bikes prohibited", and "trail not maintained beond this point". The trail then turns away from the creek and soon starts to climb at about a 15% incline. It is very easy to follow all the way up to Red Mtn Pass. Word of CAUTION: The last 100 yards before the pass ascend a very steep, NE facing gully. It usually does not melt out til late August and if icy may require ice axe and crampons to ascent in early summer. There is no way around this gully except climbing up a rock face. Once it is melted out, there is a steep switchback trail that descends / ascends the gully. So a long day hike or over night trip could be: Alpental, Snow Lake, Middle Fork, hot springs, Red Mtn pass, Commonwealth basin, Alpental (I ran that loop several years ago in about 4:30h)

As you pass Mailbox Peak trailhead, a sign says that the road is closed 5.2 miles ahead. NOT TRUE! We started at Taylor River parking lot and hiked to the bridge to Dingford Creek TH and back (12 miles round trip). Trail is in overall good shape, just a couple large washouts that must be hiked through, but they are not too hard. The boardwalks can be slippery so watch your footing on them. Nice views up the cliffs of Garfield Mountain.

We set out around 10:30. The road in had a lot of potholes, but the trailhead is accessible again, as well as the trailhead for the snoqualmie lake trail. The middle fork upstream trail was fine, there are some huge slide out sections from last winter, but the trail is easy to follow through these. We stopped about three miles in where a log lays accross the trail and the river has eaten the bank away. Not sure how the trail is beyond that.

You can surely read about trail condition from Alpental TH to Snow Lake elsewhere here, but bottom line it’s fine, no problems, no snow. From Snow Lake, Rock Creek trail #1013 isn’t in bad condition; the worst area is in the upper half with rocky surface partially obscured by a lot of brush on switchbacks. This stretch might take 20 minutes to get through, but otherwise the trail is decent. I’d never taken it before, it’s a bit steep; on the way back up the next day it took my wife and I just about exactly 3 hours to climb the (2500’ gain) trail #1013 end-to-end, and that was with few breaks and the weather was cool. Middle Fork Snoqualmie River trail #1003 is also not too bad from the Rocky Creek trail junction east to Goldmyer hotsprings. It’s not in wonderful shape, a number of blowdowns, sometimes rocky trail surface, but on the whole quite do-able. At Goldmyer we crossed the bridge and took road 56 up to the Dutch Miller Gap trailhead camp. Road 56 is of course closed to car traffic, and going uphill from the Goldmyer area it’s clear that vehicles can’t go that way anymore --- blowdowns and rockfall, etc, but it’s not a problem to walk on. The next morning we tried to take trail #1003 back from there instead of the road, and it was great for about the first 20 minutes, but then got really brushy, very slow and frustrating fighting through stuff sometimes over my head so we turned back and took road 56 back down again. Thus I don’t know what the river crossing is like on trail #1003 east of Goldmyer, and I don’t know for sure how much more brush there is --- I only waded through for about 10 minutes or so. Might be a lot more, might be just a little. If anyone pushes through that stretch of #1003 (Goldmyer to Dutch Miller Gap TH), please write that up here! Bugs weren’t all that bad for this trip; few at our riverside camp (Dutch Miller Gap TH), the occasional biting fly, some sort of annoying in-your-face gnats for much of the second day, but still --- it’s July, and I had expected worse. We were pleased to eat one or two almost-ripe Huckleberries. Obviously early, but a nice harbringer of things to come!