The previously rough road to the trailhead has now been fixed. This is a level and well-maintained trail, along a very scenic river. There is no snow on this trail, and the most scenic area is the Staircase Loop trail, that will give you some great views of the river, and then will take you back to the trailhead.

Road into Staircase being graded, a work in progress. Lots of trillium today.

The road was the worst road I have ever traveled on, and I have traveled down a fair number of gnarly forest roads. The trail is actually a 1.9 mile loop if you do not take the Four Streams spur. No snow on the trail, but it is basically a lake in some spots. Bridge is out over one creek crossing, but traveling 30 feet upstream there is a log one can easily cross over. Definitely recommend waterproof boots. Beautiful trail nonetheless, suspension bridge is nothing to get your panties in a wad over either - sturdiest one I have ever been on. Water is a gorgeous turquoise color. Contrasts well with the red of the fallen trees and yellow-green moss covering them.

The FR out there is SLOW GOING. Plan for extra time...it took us 45 minutes in our AWD Outback to travel 6 miles due to the mass amount of potholes. I'm sure a vehicle with higher clearance wouldn't need to go quite so slow. The trail up to the suspension bridge is in great shape aside from some flooded places. With all this rain everything is raging and it's absolutely gorgeous and loud. We hiked on along the North Fork for some additional miles up toward the Flapjack turn off, rounding out around 8 miles RT for the day. Some downed trees along the way, snow starts intermittently around 2.3 miles off and on. Microspikes not needed. Hopefully with rain and warmer temps it melts off soon. We were the only car/hikers out today...I guess a rainy Tuesday in March is the golden time for solitude! :) Also got to see the heard of elk as we left the park.

2 friends and I did this loop recently and it was awesome! Super easy, walking through beautiful moss covered foliage the entire time and you can't beat the view of the rapids the entire way. We're all nursing a lower body injury of some sort and didn't have a problem on this trail. **Make sure you take the path to the right after the bridge! We took a left and walked 2 miles uphill into heavier snow until running into a backpacker who warned us that we would have kept going in that same direction for days, haha!!