Great day to go for this hike with the sun shining. Only a couple of cars at 9:00AM. There are a few muddy spots as the trail climbs up to the forest. Sad to see a few doggie bags along this first part, we're lucky the nice owner keeps this trail open for us.
The first part of the trail climbs gradually, passing a few nice waterfalls before reaching the Cabin/Mine split. There are some seepages that make a few parts muddy but not too bad. I took the left fork to the cabin which is reached after a short climb. There are chairs for those who wish to rest before proceeding. Past the cabin the trail reaches a road that turning right leads to the continuation of the trail.
After a short distance the summit trail takes off steeply left and except for a few short reprieves continues to climb steeply. At the next split I took the trail right, this has decent switchbacks and eventually meets back up with the other fork that has been reported to be much steeper. Climbing higher the forest starts to thin and there are a few trees that are easily stepped over. As the trail turned towards the summit, I reached some balds where there are some decent views into Canada and the North Cascades.
I stopped at one of the higher balds when Mt. Baker came into view for a water break. Just when I was ready to put my pack on a fellow hiker who had passed me earlier came down the trail and I could tell by the look on his face that something was up. Seems that he had a cougar encounter and though it ran off when he pounded his hiking poles together, he was still a little spooked. I was already past my turnaround time, so this fact made it easy to decide to turn around even though I was only roughly a third of a mile from the summit.
We had a great hike down together, talking about the many hikes we'd both done and sharing some that one or the other of us hadn't. It made the time go by quickly and gave me a few new trails to add to my list.
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