Mount Washington

 

I am late only for a second time but this time, I am at least less than a week off.

This is Mount Washington over looking the Snoqualmie Valley on the south side. Many people go for the North end hikes like Little Si, Big Si, Mailbox Peak and what not but I wanted to change it up. In my reading, I found this this and ultimately decided to go for broke.

A few Minor issues, were merely finding the trail and hoping it wasn't to out of the way.

The trail starts after your first right into Olallie state park. The parking lot isn't anything special besides dirt, a couple signs and a initial trail. Its from the trail that you begin. It's small. Very small. You then pop out on to what is like a forest service road. A fork in the road is then met and you continue straight. As you keep going you'll pass a sign saying John Wayne Pioneer Trail. About a hundred yards after, you'll come across a "Trail". This is the actual trail. If it looks like it than it probably is and with that the UP begins.

Not much of a trail...

Now we're getting some where

Small view

This isn't to particularly hard. You'll be greeted occasionally by interesting sheer rock faces and some views although not much. I had some problems when asked how high up we were because I couldn't get a good look at other mountains to guesstimate.

At about a mile you'll come to a rock face with an opening in the bottom. Attached to the rocks are many hooks which I assume is used for rock climbing
although why they're at a point in which people would be upside, I don't know but exploring the mini cave was a fun side trip as I got to tell my girlfriend(who was occupying me again) about erosion processes and the likely formation of the rock(being an avid person of geology myself.)

 

Not sure why you would hang your self upside down but OK...

 

 

After leaving the little side trip, the up factor kept going. I, in all honesty, was a little worried that I had put us on the wrong trail, due to there not being any signs about it. We reached a clearing at about 2,500 feet and took a small break. Observing the East side of Rattlesnake Mountain, I failed to realize we were in the exact spot we needed to be in. What we had came to was the Owl Lookout spot. Back in the day, the local Mountaineers would do evening hikes to the location to observe owls flying about above the land. Now it is more of a location for the unhearty to turn around but I wasn't gonna let the break deter me any so we forged on. As we kept going up, we reached a small plateau in which I found a sign pointing to Mount WA. I breathed a sigh of relief as I knew we were in the right spot. We took the right and kept on. We had to hop across a creek not once but twice both were pretty full due to the snow around. Now there wasn't a lot but it was ice which made the going slow.

Looking out from "Owl Point"

and so it begins...

 

We arrived at a small pong and had another breather. I was looking for a small rock pile while my girlfriend snapped a few pictures lucky for us, it was sticking out of the snow and we continued down that direction and up still.

Cute little pond

THANK YOU

 

 As you go, you wrap around the dark side of a valley, still trudging in snow and pretty much stay in the snow the rest of the way. As we turned a corner and faced north, I caught sight of the little seen Glacier Peak and some snow.

 

McClellan Butte

Sun+Snow=BRIGHT


Coming around a bend again you get an awesome view of the Snoqualmie Valley. Now fooled by me, my girlfriend thought we were done but ho-ho ho little did she know. I turned and pointed up and she saw the true summit just a few hundred feet above. With a heavy sigh she set off ahead of me.

Hmmm Are these climbable?

Summits up there, now push!

Well we got onto a service road and continued on. We came to another open space and was greeted with a no trespassing sign. This I knew was going to be here because the backside of the mountain is on the north side of the little seen Cedar River Watershed. Thankfully, rather than shoot up a steep gulch, we went down the road. I had contacted a man at the Seattle Public Utility's the day before and found that so long as you don't go bombing down to the lake. So we got to another opening and I snapped a few pictures of the rarely seen lakes

Masonry pool

Miss Tahoma Showing off

 

 

and we began an up hill push to the end

　

Now the thing about this hike is that you don't realize you're at the summit until you're there but let me just say. Hot damn it was worth it.

　

To be honest.. This is the only view that matters(lots of trees at the summit)

　

Now funny story about the flag. The night before the Seattle Seahawks had won the NFC Championship and I thought that for the heck of it... Why not claim Mount WASHINGTON for the 12th man? Well that's exactly what I did. In fact this picture has even now is to be featured on Q-13 Fox News this morning in sending it into my favorite weather women.

So we finished with an U-RAH

 

What a hike it was.

I found it incredibly amazing to gain a different view on the valley so commonly hiked and especially since the climb wasn't to terribly hard. I think on the way back we saw maybe 4 hiking party's of about 20 or so people. It is defiantly a nice escape from Si or Mailbox and will defiantly be done by me again.

74,415 feet left