I was hiking section K of the PCT and needed to use the Cady Creek trail to bail out due to a phone issue. The Cady Creek trail is not terrible, but it isn't great either. It is fairly overgrown in places, enough so that I was soaking wet (like, could wring out my shorts and had water squelching in my shoes) by the time I finished, but was never difficult to follow and the elevation loss was pretty mild. You are in the trees the entire time so pretty boring as far as views go as well. There are multiple points of water access, which was a pro over Cady Creek.
The next morning I elected to hike up the Cady Ridge trail, even though it would mean missing 4 miles of the PCT. There is about 0.5 miles that is very steep, but otherwise the climb is nicely graded. The trail is not at all overgrown, and there are much better views than on the Cady Creek trail. The climb did take me a bit longer than expected since I was carrying extra water (there is none on this trail) and 8 days of food.
Overall, if you are desperate to use Cady Creek to create a loop, it's totally doable, but I would just as soon recommend using Cady Ridge as an out-and-back, especially since the trail junctions on the PCT are only 4 miles apart from each other.
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