I’ll throw in my vote for this trail as a great one for kids! it was also perfect for two of us on a 90 degree day when slogging up Cascade Pass in the open sun didn’t sound so appealing. As others have said, the first two miles or so, up to the river crossing, is gentle ups and downs with a couple downed trees as obstacles and one trail slide out spot that’s really narrow and pretty unstable. It’s adventurous enough to make it fun for kids.
But the other thing we found really cool was appreciating the forest coming back to life 20+ years after the fire. The underbrush is SO green, the saplings are 10-20’ tall, and we found lots of almost ripe blueberries in the sunny spots. In some places, blackened tree trunks jut out of the vibrant green understory and the contrast between the two is really striking. Nature doing nature stuff. Pretty cool.
At the two miles mark the trail crosses the river on a log bridge and it pretty much disappeared into the brush. I couldn’t see any trail from halfway across and so I turned back. Instead, it’s easy to get down to the river about 50-100 yards back from here and it makes a great lunch, snack, and turnaround spot. We sat for an hour then ambled back to the car, back to our campsite, and a swim in the river ten miles downstream. It might’ve been a degree or two warmer - maybe.
This is a trail along a beautiful, wild river just a few miles from its origins at the glacier that’s well worth a leisurely day hike.
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