We camped at the end of Baker River trail (Sulphide Creek Camp, permit required) on Saturday 7/15. Such a wonderful trail! There is a lot of enormous old growth, and the trail was peaceful and quiet except for the sound of the river.

The trail is in good shape for the first 1/2 - 2/3 of the way, and someone has been through recently to trim overgrown brush. However after that point it's a little overgrown the rest of the way. I was wearing shorts and it wasn't that bad, but long pants are probably preferable.

There is a big washout blow down that was a little challenging to get across, especially with big overnight backpacks. On the way back there was an obvious alternate path that was both safer and more clearly established than the one we took on the way in. I've attached a photo to show where to turn off to take that path. It has branches in front which means "don't go this way," but I strongly recommend going this way because it's an established trail (you won't be stomping through meadow) and safer than the loose dirt in a steep section out of the washout.

We were the only people at the campsite, which was so nice. The river is a few dozen yards away and has a fantastic view of Shuksan. The stars were absolutely fantastic from the dry rocks next to the river (which are surely part of the river in spring).

Road conditions: The dirt road to the trailhead was totally fine for our sedan (minus the flat tire we got on the way back). We arrived around 5pm on Saturday and there were several open parking spots. Vault toilet wasn't unbearable.

Thru hiked end to end starting at East Bank Baker Lake //Baker River TH (the north end) and made our 13ish mile was to the Baker Lake TH (south end) on a warm, partly clear Sunday morning.  We had two cars to facilitate, dropping on at the south end and then driving round to the north end.  Trail was fairly quiet, we starting around 10am and saw a few groups of backpackers, a few trail runners, and maybe two day hikers.

Lots of tasty salmon berries and stellar views of Kulshan (Mt Baker) as the miles progressed.  I personally enjoyed the first half (north end) of the trail most as the foliage is diverse and there are better lake views.  We stopped in a few of the camp sites and they looked in good shape. A few minor water crossings that I did just fine in hiking shoes instead of boots.  Inclines were gradual, nothing too steep.  Parts of the trail can be rocky.  

Lovely hike late in the day. Only saw one other couple aside from people camping. The road was the best gravel road I’ve driven on! And 5b’s Bakery in Concrete makes a lovely spot for lunch and a treat beforehand.

The last 5.5 miles of the road was gravel, but in great shape with no potholes.

-Vault toilet at the trailhead, however, at 9:30 am, there was no toilet paper. Good reminder to always bring your own.

-All of the tree blow downs have been cleared. Big thanks to the trail maintenance crew.

-Baker River Trail to the Baker Lake Trail. The trail is quite nice. It’s not an evergreen dominated forest like so much of the Pacific Northwest, so it’s a good change of pace. There are several river crossings, but there are rocks and stumps strategically placed and I never got my feet wet. Just so you know, even though this is the Baker Lake trail, you don’t come close enough to see the lake until 3.5 miles in. From then on you have beautiful views of the lake and teasing glimpses of the mountain peaks. Mount Baker makes its own weather and never quite cleared out of the clouds, but there’s a great viewpoint location at the Noisy Creek Campsite area 4.8 miles). There is only ~400 feet of cumulative ascent to here, but it feels like more than that, and some of it is quite steep. I continued another 1.5 miles to the Silver Creek campground which is less crowded and quite nice.

Getting to the trailhead was easy and traffic was light the whole way. While the parking lot had a lot of cars, finding parking was easy. Most of the people seemed to be more interested in the lake.

This was my first time on this trail and I was surprised at the level of maintenance this trail had. About 20-30 minutes after the "hiker only" split, the trail seems to have washed out, but if you follow the colored tags hanging on the trees, you can easily traverse the fallen trees.

The size of the trees really impressed me, a lot of the big fir trees are easily over 100 years.

I don’t really look at where trails end or lead into, I like to discover that myself or decide to keep going once given a choice, but this trail seemed to end at a really nice camp site (Sulfide Camp). It could have kept going, but the river may have washed it out.