Went up Silver Star Mountain yesterday afternoon to beat the heat in Portland. The trail begins steeply in forest on a less than desirable tread. Lots of loose rock. After a mile or so the trail emerges into steep open meadows full of wildflowers. This must be close to the peak for flowers here. Paintbrush, lupine, tiger lilly, beargrass, and many more were in bloom. The trail continues in these open meadows for some time, rounding Pyramid Rock before eventually returning to forest. Amazingly, even at these lower elevations the last .5 to 1 mile of trail before reaching the summit were still covered in a foot or so of snow. Very easy to follow however as many have come before. Some bugs present in this last forested section, but not too bad. Reached the summit and was treated to spectacular views stretching from Rainier to Jefferson. Had a picnic dinner at the summit and relaxed for an hour without seeing another party. I'd highly recommend this trail right now, especially on a very clear day. Felt like we were up in the alpine high country even though we topped out at 4400'.

The road to the parking area for Silver Star Mt was covered with a few inches of snow and some ice. The first mile of the trail (the steep climb) was relatively open with trace amounts of snow. Up on top the snow became deeper with packed drifts that were hard enough to walk on. Caution had to be taken on steep slopes where snow had covered flat trails making for slippery slopes above boulder slides. Overcast obscured the views for most of the hike but cleared some on the way back down. The peak itself was extremely cold and breezy- everything was covered in freezing rain and snow. Make sure and dress for winter hiking! crampons would be a good extra little safety factor.

Left Vancouver a little late than would've liked (11:30), but it was a relatively short drive (little more than an hour). The approach is a long series of logging roads, but as I found later, this trail head is best approached from the north via East fork of the Lewis and up the Rock Creek drainage. The trail itself is not the best trail I've hiked on. In fact, it resembled a creek bed as the trail was strewn with softball-size rocks. But, within no time, you are above the treeline and the views are expansive to the north and then eventually to Mt Hood and the South. The wildflowers are out in abundance (valerian, bear grass, columbine, paintbrush, iris, lupine, penstemon and others). This is a good outing if you are concerned with time and not concerned with seeing untouched wilderness. Large clear cuts extend to the north, which made me thankful we have the North Cascades.

Four of us hiked from the trailhead parking area at the end of Forest Rd 4109 to ""Ed's trail"" then to the summit. Surprisingly, there was snow on several sections of Ed's Trail. 3 short segments of 50-75 feet were steep and a little exposed. We traversed these sections with some step kicking and self belay using basketless ski poles jammed deep into the snow. Sections of the road above about 4100' had snow but the walking was easy. Nice fields of avalanche lilies, some Glacier lilies and paintbrush but I think we were a week or two early for the best flowers.

Found: Metal walking staff at trailhead 9/25/00 - contact Jones_n_Allinger at hotmail to identify and claim. Lots of rocks ""kicked"" onto trail #180 roadbed by ""pioneers"" in 4xW and other off-road vehicles bypassing the barriers on the abandoned road. Mtn. biking would be a lot of taking your ""bike for a walk"" with the many boulder covered stretches of road (not due to 4xW-s). Encountered red-striped garter snake on short boulder-type scramble near end of Ed's Trail #180A. This is a great hiker route! Don't know as I'd feel all that comfortable on it if it was wet and soil areas soaked with water. Trail #180E still had a few huckleberries offering sweet treats to weary hikers. ---Allinger