Mount Walker — Saturday, May. 23, 2026

Our high-energy, short-attention-span four-year-old tends to get bored and whiny on flat, straight parts of trails… which meant that this was the perfect trail for her! No straight flat parts at all, just up and up and up, using nice short switchbacks that she could count as she went. 😊

The advice she would like to share with the world is this: “When you poop, you gotta put down the lid, so the clean bathroom don’t get stinky like the stinky bathroom.” The advice I’d like to share is that the south viewpoint is the one with clean bathrooms and toilet paper, and it also has a much wider, unobstructed view!

That said, we don’t entirely know what the view was “of”, since there was a solid layer of clouds below us. Some adults seemed disappointed at this, but for a four-year-old, that view was proof that we had made it to the sky. “Mom! Look! We climbed all the way ABOVE THE CLOUDS!” 

Route: lower Mount Walker trailhead to the north viewpoint, the south viewpoint, and back.

Road: about ¼ mile of gravel, in good shape, from the highway to the trailhead.

Parking lot: 3 cars at 7 AM, 20 cars at 12:15 PM (almost full). There is also a road to both viewpoints; we only saw 2 cars up there, around 10 AM.

Bathrooms: none at the trailhead, or in the final half hour or so before it (ranger station was closed). Two at the north viewpoint; small and stinky with no TP. Two at the south viewpoint; large, clean and stocked.

Trail condition: excellent. Clearly marked. Starflowers and rhododendrons blooming everywhere, with ghost pipe and other funky little things poking up here and there. Almost all packed dirt, relatively few rocks/roots, no obstacles. Just take it slow on the way down so you don’t slip.  

With 2,000 feet in elevation gain in less than 2 miles, and far fewer people than spots like Mailbox, this is a great training trail. As slow as we are, we always meet everyone both on their way up and on their way down. This time we came across someone on his way up, down, and up again, training for the Washington section of the PCT. We also met a kind woman who explained that for once, she had a whole day off, so she’d decided she might was well make good use of it by tackling this climb three times in a row. I admire that energy!