Hello everyone, I ran Silver creek with a friend yesterday and thought I would throw an update/trip report out...
Started a bit late, from the Index side. Headed up the Index-Galena Road and parked at the washout 47 51' 49"N 121 28' 53"W (past the first road closed-local traffic barricade chicane.) There were tons of pink salmon spawning in the river which were fun to observe. A few of them actually ran into my legs on the hike out! About 1/4-1/2 mile of road is washed out, but after that it's back to pavement. Distance is about 3.5 miles to the bridge over the N.Fk. Skykomish from the parking area. Headed up the old road bed paralleling Silver and talked to a guy in an SUV about access. He stated that one needs a $10 permit and a key - evidently he was part of some mining club and got the key from them.
The bridge near the exit stream that is mentioned in the canyoneeringNW website is not there anymore. There is however a makeshift ladder to the right (headed up) to help negotiate the washout - found this after an interesting downclimb... Also, in the creek the single bolt at the second waterfall is minus the hanger. All that was left was about an inch of threaded steel poking out of the rock.
Total distance traveled was just under 12.5 miles. We opted to jump all of the falls - carefully of course :), so that's an option for those who enjoy that sort of thing. If I was to do this again I would take mountain bikes for the approach. They could be carried past the washout on the Index-Galena road without too much trouble and it would be a nice ride once back on the road. All in all a very enjoyable little creek. Cheers, Evan Topinka