Great river walk with our pup! The old growth is beautiful. We love this trail because it’s usually not crowded. Our dog loved the sandy beach at the end and splashing in the river. 

Saturday morning, my teen and I hiked both the ADA loop and river trail of the Old Sauk, as described in the trail description. We parked at the middle trailhead, hiked the ADA loop south to the path to Murphy Creek, then back to the north trailhead along the river, and finally completed the ADA loop.

The picnic tables and vault toilet are in great shape, and looked like a lot of the trail had been recently mowed. I think we picked up a couple of tiny pieces of trash we saw, but there really wasn't any to speak of. We did find probably 20 large crab shells in Murphy Creek, which (if I had to guess), someone had probably thrown or dumped from the bridge over Highway 530. We just kind of scratched our heads and left those where they were...

We saw very few people - we had the trail to ourselves and saw no one else at all until after noon. I suspect this might be a more popular trail for the "off-season"...which might also explain why there were still tons and tons of very ripe huckleberries. There were a few ripe blackberries and thimbleberries along they way, as well. We skipped the granola bars we brought for lunch, but most definitely didn't go hungry. It was also a warm day, so folks might have opted for higher elevation trails, but with the shade from the forest and a cool breeze off the river, it was pleasant. We had two liters of water each, and finished pretty much all of it. 

We saw four very shy garter snakes and a few birds, but otherwise not a lot of wildlife. Down by the river itself, we saw recent dog or possibly coyote tracks, and some older raccoon tracks. Given the mud and sand where we made our way down, I was a little surprised not to find any other tracks. Toward the south end of the trail, where the river is no longer visible, we did see one spot where something (I'm guessing a bear) probably came up through the brush from the river area for some huckleberries, and left a signature dropping pile right in the trail itself.

Great outing, even for a warm day, and we were pleasantly surprised at the unexpected solitude. That solitude, the easy drive, some good weather, ripe huckleberries, and -- last but not least -- some quality time with my teenager, made this a huge win. The trail description says six miles round trip, but we wandered around quite a bit, and my fitness tracker and GPS showed closer to eight. Good times.

Short version: Meadow Mountain trail is passable as a route to Kennedy Hot Springs and PCT

Long version: This summer I was looking to hike repeat some sections of the PCT with my medium-sized dog starting just south of the fires in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, and this report covers the feasibility of getting to the trail without a car. The only other way to transport her (not that cars are terribly helpful to solo hikers doing thru-hikes) was by local/regional bus. Seeing that Darrington, Washington was one of the closest endpoints of the city/county bus lines to the PCT, I rode up from Portland using 13 interconnected bus routes in one day, arriving in the evening and walking out of town three miles past the county park and to the Old Sauk River Trail, where we camped for the night.It was a nice way to transition from the urban to the wild, which continued the next day as the 3-mile trail ended with about 4 more miles of road walking on the Mountain Loop Highway before turning off across the bridge to the Boat Launch, which looked like a spectacular place to catch some sun next to the beautiful blue glacier water.

Talked to a ranger about trail conditions trying to get to the PCT this way, I decided not to try the old White Chuck River Trail that was washed out 21 years ago. It sounded potentially trying to get my physically-rehabilitated pup up a washed-out trail, though I hadn't seen the June 20th report suggesting that the first part really isn't so bad, and would have been much quicker. Continued up the road to the White Chuck Bench trailhead, which had been brushed at both ends, but was a bit overgrown in the middle. Enjoyed the river views and access near the vault toilets at the end (which were apparently serviced just before the road washed out). Ran into some mountain bikers with dogs coming down from the pass as I hiked up around 4 miles of old single-laned gravel road, and they generously offered to re-up my camping gas and lighter situation (forgot to weigh the can and it wasn't nearly as full as it seemed).

The Meadow Mountain trail was a delightful surprise. Camped about a half mile past the Crystal Lake trail junction, just past Crystal Creek, where there was a nice flat spot just off the trail. Some Mountain Lion scat kept me on my toes with a tight hold on my dog's leash that night (she of course decided to roll around in it). Hiking up past the lake trail, the views started to get really good. When I came to a developed campsite that was marked on my map, I got confused which way the trail went. After trying the three trails leaving the camp-site, I realized the correct trail must have been the one to the left just before the camp, which looked more like the result of water erosion than a trail. I was already far down the wrong trail when the offline map on my phone (maps.me) revealed this, and a short uphill scramble brought us back to it just as it started to work its way down to the basin South of Meadow Mt, which I found to be transcendental.

Should have camped there, but anxious to get down the switchbacks, I continued along the ridge, only to find there was quite a bit of trail and elevation gain and loss remaining. Set up my tent on a small meadow hillock near the ridge crest, from the back side of which a barren moon-scape of melted snow and a new view of Glacier Peak could be seen, just as dense fog rolled in. At high south-facing elevations I had a Verizon signal, and the weather forecast was for rain/snow overnight, which turned out to be light rain starting at 8am the next morning. The trail hasn't been maintained in a long time, and at about this point was sometimes covered with slippery branches of the predominant low-growing shrub. Using a walking stick to keep tabs on the edge of the trail, which often dropped off sharply under the ground cover, I lightly rolled my ankle a couple of times, and sometimes had to push back against larger bushes and small trees pushing me off from the uphill side of the trail.

When the trail passed South of Fire Mountain, I lost track of it after passing through several small, recently-melted snowfields in a row, before the clear trail petered out. I'm not sure how long I was following decoy trails, but the offline map showed the trail to be a fair distance downhill from where I'd ended up. Going down the switchbacks to the crossing of Fire Creek, the trail entered deep forest, and the occasional rotting old footbridge was a reminder that this had once been a significantly-maintained trail connecting with a popular trail system along the White Chuck River before the washout.

Seeing a relatively level bench on my topo maps, I was hoping for something we could easily pass through, and it turned out that one of the southernmost swings of the trail as it followed Fire Creek down to the old trail junction dropped me into the most ideal orienteering environment I could hope for. The ancient, mostly open forest allowed for easy travel, and fallen trunks pointing my way took me over what undergrowth there was, with my dog happily making her own way along the numerous game trails. When I got to Pumice Creek after heading more or less directly South for half a mile, it seemed to be cutting deeply into alternating banks. It took a couple approaches to find a steep bank I could get down, and coax my dog down, with a reasonable bank on the other side. I'll try to post the GPS track I took once I'm able to get my phone fixed (I think the screen was damaged from excess water exposure). Climbing out the other side, I happened to be along the bank of a small tributary, and quickly came to the challenge with this route.

The downside to traveling across this level bench and avoiding 4.5 miles of trail, much of which is reportedly washed out and difficult bushwhacking, was the 3-400 foot steep descent to the river. The slopes where I first encountered it looked to be between 70-80 degrees, and after camping for the night, I followed the game trail along the edge about 3/4 mile until the White Chuck was visible turning to the South, and game trails started heading down 60-70 degree slopes. Not knowing if there were cliffs lower below, I tied a cord to my dogs harness, and we laboriously worked our way across the slope, descending where it looked like the slope was less steep. I do have the gps track from that section, though it could probably use some cleaning up, and without a dog the descent would probably be much simpler. Not sure how it would be climbing up with heavy backpacks. I happened to come down right where the White Chuck River trail crossed Glacier Creek, and the trail seemed to split on the other side.

The more recently brushed trail to the West was probably made to catch people bushwhacking along the river and bring them to the bridge. The older trail I followed to the South soon came to a washed-out section that was easier to work around on sand bars closer to the river. Didn't see where the Kennedy Ridge trail came down to the river, every time I tried to get close to the trail track on my back-up phone, the dense Willow was a struggle to get through, so I was eventually happy to diverge from the path. Crossing Kennedy Creek was interesting with a dog, and I would have loved to look for the Kennedy Hot Springs, after hearing that they were resurfacing after being buried in ten feet of mud for 21 years, but it was getting late and I was weary of having my boots full of water from two days of swishing through wet brush. There was a huge log, easy for my dog to cross a bit upstream, but I couldn't figure out how to get over the washed-out section and overgrowth on the other side, and didn't realize that the trail I needed skirted the larger washout just upstream from there. There were some people-passable smaller trunks piled up near the White Chuck, and crossing there, it took a short scramble uphill to avoid another washout on the White Chuck side to join the White Chuck River trail climbing up to the PCT. I'll edit and add more trail details and cleaned-up tracks when I have time to get the maps out.

My wife and I hiked this on a warm Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed it.  We arrived to the middle trailhead slightly after 8am and were the only hikers there.  We encountered just 2 other groups on the entire hike.

The trail was in good condition throughout and seemed to have been recently brushed, as it was not overgrown as a few reports suggested.  We hiked mainly in the shade (very important with the temperature) and were often able to see and even sometimes dip toes in the river from various points.

We stopped in Darrington on the way back for a fill up and were pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere at Mo's as well.  Overall an accessible and great hike all year round.

Better start packing the empty Nalgene! We didn't hike much with all the hucks we just picked, both red and blue. We did leave a few for the bears. Trail could use a weed whip in the middle section. ADA loop looks pretty good and if you have the right wheelchair you could get thru the upper (left) trail. Loo clean and stocked. Easy walk off the MLH, picnic tables near parking lot, but in the sun in the afternoon.