If you've ever wondered what flowers produce the fluffy moptops of high summer, then go to Marriott Meadows now :-) The flowers are beginning to bloom, and the meadow near the Wendy Thompson hut is filled with flowering western anemone. We met a nice old guy by the hut and chatted about snow levels and places to hike in the area.
A lovely peaceful day, even if it did occasionally rain and drizzle on us. The forest was beautiful (the mood I was in, I could have spent all day wandering the forest and gone home happy). We ate lunch at the hut, which we had to ourselves at that point. The stairs up to the entrance have suffered in recent years - the bottom step has gone so it's a big step to the second, and the others don't exactly inspire confidence.
The trail was not as wet and boggy as I expected, but that doesn't mean there was no mud - there was plenty. Boots are recommended to avoid having to trample yet more meadows in order to avoid said mud. Gaiters were also useful as I did go in ankle deep at one point :-) The log crossing over Cayoosh Creek was a little hairy and required focus given that the log was damp. There's a loose handline that may or may not be useful for balance. The other creek crossings were fine. A couple of tiny patches of snow near the hut, but that was it.
Flowers are blooming nicely. Not too much in the forest yet - a few marsh marigolds in the boggy areas but lots once you enter the meadows. In the meadows were marsh marigolds, cinquefoil, globeflower, pink and white heather, spring beauty and lots and lots of western anemone (with many more to come). Lots of paintbrush and bog orchid along the logging road.
Bugs were not too bad, but were definitely hungry. It was easy to get lulled into a false sense of security and forget about them, only to feel that familiar jab... We saw a pair of marmots near the hut, and a mother grouse and a brood of chicks on the logging road.
The road condition is pretty much unchanged since our last visit in 2009 - almost any car will be able to make it about a kilometre in and there are two large pullouts where 2 or 3 cars can park. Beyond that, it gets rougher but anything with high clearance will make it the remaining km or so. But it doesn't really matter - the road is not really that unpleasant to walk along. Just make sure you follow the directions in 103 Hikes to get the correct access road (it's easy to miss) and do *not* take the big obvious logging road labelled "Marriott Basin"...