Exactly. It's a forest, not the mall

Pilchuck is one of the worst forest service roads that I have been on in the past 5 years. The roads in walker valley are way better, and thats an offroad park!

I've taken my Civic up a lot of forest roads in the area, and that would be similar to a Prius. Since my wife got an Outback, we usually take that instead, but out of convenience, rather than necessity.

I have not tried the road to the Pilchuck trailhead. There are only two forest roads we've done in the Outback bad enough that I might consider turning back if I tried them in my Civic: the roads to Ashland Lakes (FS 4020) and the road to Evergreen Mountain Lookout (FS 6550).

I actually think I could do both in a Civic. It would just be slow going to pick lines around and through all the giant holes and erosion ruts.

> It's a rough drive but seriously what do these people expect when they take a damn prius down these forest roads?

We went al over the Cascades when I was a kid in a Datsun 210, a Prius might be more capable. We hiked through an lot of clearcuts, perhaps the logging roads were being more actively maintained in the '80s.

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> Prius

Better torn to shreds on poorly maintained forest roads instead of in its natural habitat: camping in the left lane of I5 going 20 mph below the limit.

Unless they’ve fixed it up since early summer, the road to the Goat Lake trailhead was also very bad with bits of broken car parts littering the ditches.

I am always looking for the washed out trailheads.

I agree with you but Phelps Creek Trailhead is just as bad, maybe worse, and there is always a huge line of cars there.