A short trip report on the condition of the Alder Flat trail and campground after the fires.

On Monday, I did a quick hike down the Alder Flat trail to the campground at the river.  The good news is that the trail had quite a bit of work done on it post fire and most of it is in pretty good shape.  The additional good news is that although there is a lot of tree mortality (100% kill in some areas), there are still green trees, and the campground itself was mostly spared from the fire.

The bad news is that there is a lot of dead trees and most of the bridges/boardwalks in the flat area before the campground are gone, and have not been replaced as of yet.  With a little creativity those crossings are not too bad however.  The side trail to the swamp with the beaver dam isn't nearly as evident as it used to be and the beaver dam appears to have burned in the fires - the level of the swamp is quite a bit lower than it used to be.

One of the burned bridges/boardwalks:

 The big log where the beaver dam used to be:

There are also a few new trees that have come down after the maintenance that had been done.  They aren't too difficult to crawl over but one or two of them are somewhat large (more than just a step over).  I did some minor cutting with a handsaw and loppers to make things a bit easier to get thru.

While it is considerably different than it used to be, it is still a pleasant hike down to the river with some new views being opened up.