One tree over trail, but it's easy to duck under. Only a little bit of snow at the top of Mt Zion.

The snow last week has all melted and will be snow-free for a few more weeks. We got to the trailhead at 9:45 AM. The trailhead can fit about three cars, but another pullout is about 50 feet further down the road. It's really steep so take your time. At 1.0 mile, you'll come to a saddle, and from here, it's all downhill to the snow creek junction.

If you come to a bridge over a big cascading creek, then you've missed the junction. I wanted to go past the junction to give my dog some water, and I could tell that the snow creek trail was slightly steeper and more primitive than deadfall with many more rocks and roots. After a tough climb, the first viewpoint is to the left—a full 180-degree view on the edge of a 200-foot cliff, you can see Mount Townsend, Mount Walker, Quilcene Range, Mount Shuksan, Mount Baker, and many more. After the viewpoint, it's perfectly flat all the way to the summit.

When you get to the summit, continue straight past it for a 0.5-mile extension trail. It's well worth it, and if you love cliffsides with amazing views, then this will be your highlight of the hike. When we got to the summit at about 11:30, it was 31 degrees. The ground was frozen, and there was frost on the ground. We only saw one couple from the deadfall trail and two more from the main Mount Zion route on a Halloween Saturday.

We started at the Deadfall trailhead and had intended to make it to Mt. Zion. As several of the other trip reports have said, don't let the 560 ft over 1.6 miles fool you. The 23% grade is accurate and you definitely gain well over 560 ft as there is a steep decline to the junction. One of the other trip reports noted it was closer to 1,000 ft of gain and 400 ft of drop before the junction. I didn't have a GPS so I can't attest to the accuracy of that but it sure felt accurate.

While the other trip reports noted the good signage at the junction, which is true, everyone in my party somehow missed the junction the first time through. There were three of us, two of us are very experienced hikers, so I'm not sure how we missed it the first time, the signs are clearly marked and two of them even had decorative rocks. In any event if you start from the Deadfall side and see the water crossing bridge in the photo, you've gone too far and should turn around. 

While we had originally intended to go all the way to Mt. Zion, after accidentally walking all of the Snow Creek trail we opted to head back for lunch instead of do the remaining 5 miles (round trip) and 1,500 ft of elevation gain from the junction. The current weather suggested there wouldn't be much of a view up top anyway. Would definitely go back and do it again now with proper expectations on the initial steepness.

A 100% social distancing hike, not another soul - for a reason.  Deadfall began in slush at the trailhead, I was breaking new trail in 14" powder by the summit.  It was our warmest day since Fall, but 60 sunny degrees at sea level became 35 by the summit.  **Note: I only saw today that Nat Forest trailheads are closed since last week, there was nothing on the board saying so.

One pair of footprints went halfway up the initial steep, continuous 3/4 mile climb from the Deadfall trailhead until they turned back, so I got to make the first prints up, over, and back down to the Snow Creek connection where others had come from that trailhead.  It was nice following tamped down snow until they, too, had thrown in the towel and turned around halfway up leaving just virgin snow.  From that point, the going was much slower as the snow got deeper and deeper and the climb never flattened.  It was a fun challenge figuring out the most likely route of the trail through the woods with absolutely nothing to indicate where it lay, except knowing there are no switchbacks.  Just keep going mostly straight, and steeply up.

Other reviews mention no view from the summit, but WOW! the 180 degree view from the rock outcrop after the trail flattens out prior to the top is breathtaking.  That feeling is probably because being completely wooded there is no hint of what's to come before you step out on the rocks and are looking straight across at Mt Townsend to the south, with a hint of Hood Canal to the east and numerous 7,000' peaks towards the west.  Sure, the true summit another flat 1/2 mile beyond is lackluster, but here is your reward for the relentless uphill trek.

My friend and I originally planned to get up to Mt. Zion via Snow Creek Trail, but the road from Snow Creek Rd. was blocked with a tree (about 6" or so around), so we turned around, aiming for either the official Mt. Zion trailhead or Deadfall trailhead.

Going up the road to the Mt. Zion trailhead, we ran into snow/slush approximately 3 miles from the trailhead. I looked for the Deadfall trailhead and it was just a fraction of a mile up the road, so we opted for that trailhead.

Going up Deadfall was a good slog. We ran into snow around 3.1k' under the tree cover, then lost it once we descended to the Snow Creek trail junction. We turned left and pushed up towards the summit. My friend and I meandered off trail in the snow around 2.5 miles in (0.8 miles from the summit), looking for a view before the viewless summit. We turned around because we couldn't find a view and the summit was a bit too far away for our time box.

On the way down we had lots of fun boot skiing over the slushy trail :).

PS The trail length is as advertised going up to Mt. Zion. Whoever tried editing the length on the map/in past trip reports was incorrect; Fitbits (for example) can lie/mislead, as my friend and I discovered comparing the results from our 2 Fitbits.