Had a good hike on Tuesday spent the night at the nonexistent Mackinaw shelter camp area it is just a pile of dead wood with nails sticking out. When You get to the site where the supposed shelter is there will be a large pile of wood with nails sticking out of it to your right on the river side of the trail obviously. Further up the trail is really really steep hilly terrain. the campsites have a nice big firings and if you look real hard you can find some dry wood to burn. We brought a 2 lb duraflame log and had no issue getting a nice base of coals going.  if you go any further past the Mackinaws shelter you’ll run into very very steep terrain not for the faint hearted. Lots of water on the trail but nothing too difficult to get through. Use caution crossing the river tributary about a mile and a quarter in from trailhead. No true crossing is apparent. 

Tried to hike this one on Sunday, but the road was too rough. Tons of potholes, and when they're filled with water, it's hard to know how deep they are. I got to about 9mi from the trailhead and decided it wasn't worth the risk. Bummer, hope this road gets some maintenance because this hike seems lovely. 

The road has been cleared to the trailhead! There are numerous potholes on the Mountain Loop Highway and on Forest Road 49 so it is slow going in some spots but we had no problems getting there in a Toyota Rav4. The trail is in good condition considering all of the blow downs that had previously closed the road. There are branches and debris on the trail and a few blow downs across the trail but nothing that isn't easy to get around. Given all of the rain we have had we were surprised that the trail wasn't too muddy. With the cold weather we have had there are still a few patches of snow on the trail but these also are easy to cross. The spring growth made everything glow bright green with trillium in bloom making for a very nice forest walk.

We never made it to the trailheads so not really a hike trip report. My daughter and I were exploring for the day and decided to see the condition of Mountain Loop Highway and forest road 49. Mtn Loop is clear of snow from Darrington to FR 49 but the potholes are deep and many, it was a slow bumpy go. No trees or other blockages. FR 49 was another story. We made it about 1.5 miles and found a sweet family out clearing trees. We parked and started clearing with them. We worked for almost 2 hours before we had to go an appointment. When we left the road was clear enough to just past 2 miles but there were much bigger blowdowns past where we stopped. All in all it was a fun afternoon helping out but no hike was had, this one will take some bigger chainsaws and muscle strength than what we had today.