Gorgeous day for a hike! Blue skies, hardly any clouds, but quite a bit of snow still on the mountain. We were able to see Mt Rainier, Mt Adams, Mt St Helens and Mt Baker on the hike. We got to the parking lot around 12pm.
The first 0.8 miles (800ft elevation) took us about 25 minutes, and that gets you to the Summer route fork in the trail. There is essentially no snow up until this point.
Past the sign (at around 0.9 miles), you go up a snowy hill, that is pretty steep, and from there you're in snow the rest of the way.
At 1 miles (1000ft elevation) there's a good lookout spot to see Mt Rainier.
At 1.2 miles (1100ft elevation) there is an even better lookout spot, and this would be a good place to stop if you want to avoid the heavy snow and very steep trails. At this point, it's easy to lose the trail, especially if you go to the lookout. The trail continues into the woods on your right before the lookout (which is on the left).
From this point, it gets really steep and if it's sunny (like it was the day we went), you really have no shelter from it. The snow was very slushy, but there were easy-to-follow trails and footprints.
We took plenty of breaks and did wander off trail a few times, and we got to the top in about 2 hours and my watch clocked 2.5 miles, 2500ft elevation.
Going down the mountain took us about 1 - 1.5 hours and was made quicker by sliding down the snow.
It was a tough hike with the snow, but the views made it worth it! We didn't have any microspikes, crampons or poles, but it would definitely be easier with them.
With our time at the top, breaks and everything together we got back to the car around 3:30pm, so overall ~3:30hr hike.
Comments