This is the new trail going up to mailbox peak by North Bend, WA. Parked at trailhead and started running at 7:22am. You reach the forrest after 0.75mi. The place has beautiful trees and the trail is nice and soft. Trail gets more rocky closer to the junction with the old trail (4ish miles in), then you reach a talus field that is easy to follow and is fun to jump rocks, then steeper dirt/rock trail all the way to the top to the mailbox. I reached it at 9:02am (1:40hrs). No views this time, just light snow. The way down until the junction is steep and rocky, I walked this part. Then after the junction it becomes more runnable. There is a bridge 1.25miles from the finish that is a good marker to know how much is left. Despite the constant drizzle and snow at the top, mailbox peak is tough - this, super satisfying! Finished at 9:59
Pictures on strava activity feed. There are two junctions of old trail with new. I thought there was only one -most maps only show one. There is a second junction that is that is easy to miss on the way up because the trail clearly goes down, and you know you have to go up so it keeps you on the new trail, but on the way down you need to take a sharp left to stay on the new trail instead of straight (there is nothing blocking it and it looks good) so I took that by mistake, not realizing that it was a little section of the old trail. This mistake cuts one of the switchbacks, a total of 0.12miles (verified by caltopo).But it puts you back on the new trail uphill of the well known junction. Just wanted to clarify. Would not have noticed if I hadn’t tracked my run. Picture on strava circled in blue.