Embarrassing to admit I was defeated by a half mile loop, but that happened to me today!

I stopped off to check out this short loop on my way home from a longer hike. Past the big fallen tree that's mentioned in previous reports, there's a pile of fresh looking downed trees, piled on top of each other and completely obstructing the trail.  I scrambled past the first couple, but couldn't see which way the trail continued (it's also quite overgrown) so I called it a day.

At least for the first couple of hundred feet, this area looked lovely indeed.

After working all day on a different trail with WTA I decided to do this short half mile trial on my way out of the Park. 

The trail head is very visible from the small parking area on the side of the road, the trail itself is a little hard to find when you walk past the trail sign. keep making left hand turns on this trail.

Not too far from the trail head about 300 yards there is a downed tree across the trail which kind of blocks the trail and unless you are actively looking for the trail you could get lost/ turned around in this area. go to the end of the log and walk around it since it's a large tree it's not a step over.

The trail does incline a little bit, but some chuck steps do help with this. The trail is pretty well maintained for the first few hundred years, but then all of a sudden it seemed like the trail petered out, and opens to a wooded area with old growth firs (hence the name). I thought I had lost the trail but then I saw a downed tree that had been cut, and what looked like a trail. 

On the foot bridge that crosses back over the small creek there is a large downed tree which the size is impressive if you've never seen old growth forests before.

The final stretch of 50 years of this trail needs some serious brushing of vegetation as it is growing over the trail, There are a few spots where Devils Club is right next to the trail - at eye level for most men i'm guessing.

Other interesting thing I saw on this trail were two different sections of old cables half under the ground. I only had my imagination to wonder were the from old logging? mining on the mountain? Or were they from something else?

If this trail were to be cleaned up a little it, it would be even better for children. Even with the slight overgrowing vegetation I would highly recommend it as a short little jaunt through old growth trees that are up to five and a half feet in diameter. 

Pretty

Great little warm up trail that can be accessed shortly after the Nisqually Entrance to Mt Rainier National Park. Other trip reports talked about confusion about which way the loop progressed. We did not encounter this. Just move left of the initial downed tree and you will be fine. There is a little elevation gain on the loop, but nothing too strenuous. There are some beautiful old growth trees on this loop. Trying to take a picture of something so large doesn’t do it justice. You just have to see them! If you are into old growth forests you should also check out Grove of the Patriarchs or hike on the Carbon River Trail, each in a different corner of the park. The Twin Firs loop is very accessible for easy-level hiking. The only obstacle might be one of the log bridges pictured that might be difficult for those with balance issues. It was pretty wide and easy to traverse for most. In all it is a great little trail to get you moving if you have had to drive a ways to get to the park!

Twin Firs Bushwhack

We entered Mount Rainier National Park about 2:15 pm. Our first stop was the Twin Firs trail. We made the mistake of attempting a counterclockwise loop and taking a trail to the right, which had a large tree fallen across it, and we climbed over the tree and soon ran out of trail! Apparently this is not the main trail. We bushwhacked our way in a loop back to the trailhead. Our loop was 0.4 miles, but we climbed over blowdowns and made our way through brush until we got back to trail. When we got back, we determined where we should have gone (straight or to the left), but we had another, longer hike in mind and resolved to finish this one later. Because of the ambiguous trailhead, I marked this hike "difficult to navigate."

Along the way, we marveled at old growth (OG), giant blowdowns, moss, seedlings, and groundcover. The flora consists of Douglas fir, western hemlock, red cedar, red huckleberry, deer fern, sword fern, and Cascade Oregon-grape. The trail, where we were on it, is in relatively good condition.

We have to give a shout-out to the ladies at the Copper Creek Inn in Ashford. We had initially planned a trip to Glacier View on FR-59, but we had a flat tire on the FR, and we changed our tire at the Inn's parking area. We had lunch there, and the ladies at the Inn brought us an air compressor to attempt inflation of our spare tire. We had great food and service above and beyond the call of duty.