Westside Road, St. Andrews Park - St. Andrews Lake, Wonderland Trail & Tahoma Creek — Saturday, Jul. 12, 2025

3 of us made a wonderful overnight loop in the backcountry with stunning views of the western face of the great Mt. Tahoma!

Overview
Overnight, July 12-13 (backcountry zone permit)
20 miles (11 on day one, 9 on day 2), 6k elevation gain

Day 1 (~11 miles, 4.5k ft elevation gain)
Stayed the previous night in Ashford at Whittakers bunkhouse. With a good night of sleep on a real bed and a mere 25 min drive to the trailhead we arrived at the westside road trailhead around 7:30 am feeling stoked! We spent the first ~7 miles walking along the westside road to St. Andrews. The road was so chill, lots of people zooming by on their ebikes. No water along the road after the first mile-ish though. 
Had lunch at the junction along St. Andrews creek and guzzled water. Definitely worth a stop to take a look at the patrol cabin, still looks like its in great shape! I'd chill there for the winter ☺️
Then took the trail up towards St. Andrews lake. We linked up with the wonderland trail at Aurora lake, which was stunning but the bugs were HORRENDOUS! Couldn't stay for long without a breeze.
Before we knew it we were at St. Andrews Lake, arrived ~3 pm with tons of time. The tarn above St. Andrews lake was still 98% covered in snow, with a tiny channel of freshhhhhly melted snow (perfect for anyone into ice baths).
Saw some folks coming down the upper reaches of Tokaloo, in hindsight I wish we had dropped our packs and made a quick summit!
We ended up finding an epic spot on a ridge along the Tokaloo bootpath with a glorious view of the mighty mountain. Mosquitos were baaaaad up there though. Enjoyed our dinners in the tent so the mosquitos didn't eat us alive.

Day 2 (~9 miles, 1.5k gain and the rest loss haha)
Woke up to quiet meadows, Tahoma, babbling brooks, and lots of mosquitos. The sun didn't hit us until like 7 am since it had to crest the entire summit, but when it did holy cannoli it was a kick in the butt to break down camp and get moving hahah.
We followed the wonderland trail most of the day. Went down the south puyallup drainage and back up to the emerald ridge. The emerald ridge is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, an unobstructed 180 degree view of the western face of Tahoma, towering waterfalls in the distance, and a pristine meadow teeming with wildflowers and butterflies!
We made our way down to the suspension bridge. Our plan was to link back up with the westside road from here via the tahoma creek trail. A sign at the junction with the wonderland trail said it was closed but we thought we'd try our luck, our crew has some solid off-trail backcountry experience and a GPS. "How bad could it possibly be?" we asked ourselves.
As a member of our party adeptly put it, the trail was "grocery store salsa spicy" (otherwise known as white people spicy). Some significant washed out sections lead you to do some route finding and scrambling but lots of significant sections are still in great shape. 

Another epic trip! Would highly recommend this loop