Had a delightful surprise today on Tongue Mountain - the trail is clear of trees and hikeable nearly all the way to the top! The only reason I didnt make it to the summit is that the trail gpes between two high points and that section of it becomes an avalanche chute, so the snow has slid and covered the switchbacks.

If I'd had trekking poles and snowshoes or microspikes I likely could have made it but I didnt want to risk falling or postholing and hurting myself, so I turned around abt 4 switchbacks from the summit.

The trail itself (aside from the hiker-only spur to the summit) is open to motos, so its pretty rutted but not as bad as in other parts of the Dark Divide.
Its v e r y steep though.

The titular bridge of the High Bridge trail has collapsed. Hikers can still cross it, but there's a bypass trail that has emerged for motos.

Shoutout to Rob, who I met after this hike while I was at Cispus, and who is apparently responsible for clearing the Tongue Mountain trail and High Bridge! Looks great, what a treat!

We were hoping to hike juniper ridge, but could not make it to the trailhead. There were lots (probably ~30) of fallen trees in the road 3 miles from the trail head and we didn't want to add an additional 6 miles RT to the hike.

Ended up doing High bridge trail to Tongue Mountain, starting at the trailhead on NF-29 (the WTA map will take you to a different one on NF-2904). The trail is deeply rutted from dirt bikes so it feels like you're walking up a drainage ditch. Very steep hike, so I would recommend poles for the way down. We were able to see bear grass, fairy slippers, and trillium flower blooms! We Did not go all the way to the top -- still getting back into hiking shape after the COVID-19 hiatus -- because even though the weather forecast was sun, we could only see down the valley and all mountains were obscured. There is a bridge out, but the river is easily passable by staying on the trail to the left once you see the "danger bridge out" sign. Staying on that trail, you want to take a left after about 3/4 of a mile from the trailhead (if you go right you will end back at the bridge).  You will eventually meet up with the Tongue Mountain Trail ~1.5-1.75 miles after the trailhead. Stay to the right (heading SE towards Tongue Mt). Eventually you will see signs (~2 miles from the trailhead) pointing to Tongue Mt, continue to follow those. We only ran into one other group while we were there and when we were packing up our car we saw 3 dirt bikes head up.

Started from High Bridge Trail 293 off of NFDR 29 just before 4pm. Signs say the bridge at High Bridge Creek is washed out. It was running low enough to still cross and bikers have made a new trail over the creek (either way is possible, but the biker trail to the left is probably easier). At about one mile is an unsigned junction. We had Gaia and knew to turn right. After 0.5 miles was the intersection for Tongue Mountain trail 294. Turned right and went for about another 1.2 miles. At the next junction, we turned left for the last 0.8 miles to the top (Gaia notes there is an abandoned trail down at this junction, but we saw no evidence of it). At the top, the safest viewpoint is to the right. While not as tall as the haystack to the left, it was easy to navigate up. The top offers 320 degree view, including Rainier, Adams and St. Helens. We stayed long enough to cool down from the strenuous incline. On the way back, we moved pretty fast and returned to the car at 7pm. The only other person we saw the entire time was a biker. The two junctions are well signed. Total elevation gain was 2589' and distance was around 7 miles (started Gaia too late for accuracy).

Dog Advice: Only two water sources. It was a hot day and I was glad I did not bring them on this one. The very top is narrow and would have to be navigated very carefully.

I went up to Tongue Mountain using the High Bridge Trail #193 route just to give me a couple of extra miles and make for a bit of a longer hike. Not much to see on #193, even the bridge was gone. The first half of that trail is fairly tame, but the second half is steeper and heavily rutted from previous motorcycle use. With the bridge out, it's supposed to be closed to bikes, but those ruts are a good 2-3 feet deep in places and extremely narrow. I was tripping over my own feet.

At the intersection of Tongue Mountain Trail #194, I met a group of 3 motorcycles and we passed and re-passed each other 4 or 5 times until I got to the hiker-only junction trail leading to the summit. All of the trails are well-signed and finding the way to the top was no problem. This trail also was not too steep until the turn towards the summit.

As I approached the summit I ran into a group of mountain bikers at the saddle between the two main peaks of Tongue mountain. To the right was the lower peak with nearly 360° views from Rainier to Adams to St. Helens. Awesome! To the left was a pretty tame scramble that led to the higher peak with a solitary campsite and an outcropping of trees that blocked any views. There was a bit of snow there, but nothing major.

Overall I think it was about 7 miles and it took me about 4 hours, including lunch at the top. I didn't see any other hikers, but did see the five or six mountain bikers and around eight trail bikes. But it was a gorgeous sunny day and the views at the top were totally worth it.