The trail was easy to follow, already somewhat packed, but definitely needed snowshoes. Nice plowed area to park on the side of Highway 20.
Easy gentle grade on forest road to the actual trailhead.
There are a few obstacles easy to step over in snowshoes with care. The falls are beautiful.
From Highway 20 to the falls and back was about 5.5 miles.

Spring has definitely come to the lower Methow Valley. I was looking for winter and fortunately SR 20 was plowed to milepost 171. The pullout for Cedar Cr road was plowed, providing parking for about 6 cars. The Cedar Cr road and trail were completely covered in snow. The area had about 2-3" of new snow from the last few days over the consolidated snow. Many folks had walked up the road to the summer trailhead on prior days. The consolidated snow made a good base for walking without significant post-holing.

Only about 5 people had gone beyond the summer trailhead, and their tracks in the snow were easy walking with trekking poles. I was carrying my snowshoes, but didn't need them to get to the falls.

In the aftermath of the Cedar Creek Fire, the winter view is very stark, basically black tree trunks and white snow! It was an overcast day, so no blue sky to provide some bright color. I stopped at the falls, as had all the tracks, both recent and older.

After a short lunch, I started down, wearing my snowshoes. My tracks would help widen the trail in the snow and reduce the jarring loads on my knees. On my way out, I met 4 groups of people coming in.

Overall a great trip, after wasting part of the morning carefully skiing on the icy groomed ski trails down valley!

We parked at the pullout on Hwy 20 at Cedar Cr Rd. Used snowshoes up the road on the way in, but not on the way out. A tree blocks the road 0.2 mile from the pullout, but is easy to step over. The easy walk up the road has had lots of human traffic (hikers, snowshoers, snowmobiles,...) along with some natural ones - including scat left by a large carnivore.

At the trailhead, the vault toilet is unlocked (with TP), but the picnic table is still partially buried in snow. Officially, this area is unmaintained by the USFS from October to May.

Snowshoes were not necessary on the trail as it alternated between bare dirt and snow. The trail is about 60% snow covered in the first 0.6 miles. The half a dozen logs over the trail in the first 0.5 mile are a minor impediment for hikers.

Between 0.5 mile and 0.6 miles are three large hazardous jumbles of logs making travel extremely difficult for hikers. In the first jumble, the trail is on steep slope and directly under a large tree that is resting on snow and partially supported by some bent over brush. We spent over an hour working our way through and around the jumbles, covering a little more than 700 feet of trail distance.

After reviewing where we had been, seeing an entire hillside of uprooted trees, and more of the same up the trail, we had some lunch and headed back. The return through the 700 feet of jumbles, knowing where we were going, still took 10 minutes!

There were a few glacier lilies by the trail, just before the first jumble. The falls will have to wait until the snow melts and lots of chainsaw work is done...

Walked to trailhead from end of road (about 3 miles). No tracks on the side road to the trailhead so it's been at least a few days since anybody tried this. I downloaded the relevant maps to ViewRanger, which I would say is essential (or comparable app) if there are no tracks to follow on trail. There was at least a foot of new snow on the trail, so it wasn't always obvious where it was. About 0.5 miles in, we encountered quite a few large downed trees at the edge of a large (at least 50 ft tall) mound of snow. It appears there may have been an avalanche here recently which has covered the trail. The topo map I was following showed no such hill. We decided to try to get around, through, or over the obstacles, which proved very difficult given the number of downed trees, the deep snow (we were using backcountry snowshoes), and the very steep slope. After about 30 minutes of hard effort, we sort of made it to the other side and reacquired the trail, at least according to the GPS and the map. However, we still found ourselves on a rather steep sideslope that in no way resembled a trail. Afraid of encountering even more difficult terrain ahead, we turned around, which proved just as difficult as the way in. The trail may be over there somewhere and passable, but it will take a significant effort to find it.

We took a break from skiing in the Methow to snowshoe up the beautiful Cedar River trail toward Cedar Falls.  Parking is in a plowed pullout at the base of the road normally driven from SR20 to the trailhead.  We started out in snowshoes but removed them early since the packed trail was narrow for snowshoes and firm enough to hike without them.  It is beautiful in winter as in any other season, with cedars, spruce, Douglas fir, views of the Methow valley walls, but in winter add in animal tracks, snow-laden trees, solitude, and silence.  We started a little late and turned around at 3 pm (sunset at 4) just before the falls, after a wonderful hike that was more strenuous than without snow but easily passable with Sorrels or hiking boots.  Note that this was before the predicted snow of New Years Eve/Day, so conditions may change.  Covid-friendly too--we saw no one other than our party of 3.