This was one of those “glad to be alive and nowhere I’d rather be than in the mountains” kind of days. I met up with two hiking buddies at 7:00 am in Issaquah and we headed down to the Palisades Lake trail. We had our first wildlife sighting on 410, where we stopped for a large elk that was standing broadside in the oncoming traffic lane. It slowly ambled across the road. We arrived at the White River park entrance around 8:30 am to no line, and plenty of parking in the lot ~ 12 miles from the park entrance.
The air was crisp and cool, there was bright sunshine, birdsong, and wildflowers. Saw a pika in the rocky section on the initial descent with its mouth full of greens – cute! Trail is generally in good condition, though there were multiple blowdowns, two of which were slightly challenging for those of us with shorter legs and less flexibility. On the way out we encountered a National Park service ranger sawing away at one of the blowdowns in a meadow – thank you!
The wildflowers were abundant – lupine, magenta paintbrush, phlox, heather, violets. Some clouds had moved in as we hiked, but when we arrived at one of the upper meadows, the sun came out again, creating a magical landscape of flowers, boulders, small pond, and the encircling peaks. Just lovely. Bugs were annoying at a few sections in the woods, so bring bug spray. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch at a beach on Upper Palisades lake, then checked out the camps at Upper Palisades and Dick Lake for future backpacking trips. We had the trail pretty much to ourselves most of the day, encountering only two pairs of hikers on the way in and a handful on the way out.
This is a reverse hike with much of the elevation gain on the way out and some very steep sections. We took our time and continued to enjoy the views and fresh air. Total stats were 7.8 miles, 1500’ gain
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Elevation Gain
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