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Trip Report    

Day Hike - Tolt MacDonald Park

Tolt MacDonald Park hike that turned into a Snoqualmie Valley hike.

Joshua Stein Joshua Stein
December 14, 2025
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • The park is effectively closed. Flooding resulted in the park, parking lot, and bridge closing. The trails in the area had a lot of debris near the river. The above photo shows one part of the trail where someone made a bridge with branches.

    I do not recommend planning a hike at Tolt MacDonald Park until King County Parks has had an opportunity to clean up the debris, trails, and reopen the bridge.

Parking

All gates to Tolt MacDonald Parking lots were closed. We instead parked nearby at a park in Carnation near the Snoqualmie Valley Trail to regroup.

Alternate route

With Tolt MacDonald Park being effectively closed, we rerouted the hike to be along the Snoqualmie Valley Trail. Amusingly, this is the second time that I've led this hike and the bridge was unexpectedly closed. Thankfully, the Snoqualmie Valley Trail was nearby. Everyone was open to this change in plans so we went with it.

The Snoqualmie Valley Trail was in good condition. It's along higher elevation so it would appear that it was unaffected by the flooding. This made the hike pleasant since we didn't have to navigate any debris once on this trail. Our new route took us south toward the Griffin Creek Natural Area at which point we turned around.

The hike distance was close to what was originally planned. The only major difference in the hike stats was that this route has very little elevation gain. We were able to have a faster pace since the trail is flat and in good condition so it still made for a good workout.

Rating

The only reason for the 3/5 rating is that the conditions of the trails near Tolt MacDonald Park and the park itself weren't very good. I'd typically give this location a better rating based on my past experiences.