I took a trip up Larch Mountain yesterday to check out conditions. Happy to report, conditions overall were excellent!
Specifically, I most wanted to have a look at the washout about 2.25 miles up and answer
idoru's question about how that's looking. There's been work done since I last looked (thanks!). It's not a "repair," but it's a serviceable patch-up. A bit of a shimmy to get past the big knob of root, but it works.
From below (have to click to expand if you want to see anything more than a blur):
From above:
I encountered very little debris. The one notable problem was the west fork bridge, which had a tree down on it.
Just beyond there was where I first saw any snow on the trail. For as far as I went the snow was soft enough to slow me down, but neither soft or deep enough to posthole at all. I didn't start to sink in until I was at the service road. I expect it got worse from there, especially as the trail wasn't really tracked out, but I'd already decided I wasn't going higher than that. Those last couple miles are my least favorite of the trail, and it was heavily fogged in, so there wasn't much point. I turned at the service road and wound up making a lollipop loop, rejoining Larch via the multnomah basin road.
Saw absolutely no one all day beyond the lower mile and a half or so of the trail.
