Osborne Mountain — Saturday, Nov. 23, 2013

South Cascades

Decided to try a trail I haven't seen much info on. Osborne Trail (#250) starts at Big Creek Campground off of Skate Creek Rd on the southwest side of MRNP. It is actually in the Gifford Pinchot NF. The campground is closed so I merely parked off the road just outside the gate. I got a late start and didn't begin the hike until just after 11am. The first section of the hike, about 200-300 yards was all frost covered not slippery but just frosted. Once I hit the actual woods, the frost disappeared and the hike up started. This trail is open to horses and bikes as well and while I did see signs of bike use (not recently), I doubt any horse has been up here in a while. Once you enter the forest the next 2.5 miles is all switchbacks. It is pretty steep in places and you will get a workout. Once you reach the top of the ridge, you will notice one obvious trail (to the left)and one not so obvious trail (to the hard left). You want to take the hard left (going up). The other trail (#255) heads down towards FR8510. There are no signs for this intersection. From this point you move in and out of trees. To the south you can see Griffin Mountain. And behind it, Mount St. Helens. You can even see Mount Adams peeking from behind some smaller mountains. This section of trail did have a little snow on it. Not much and it was scattered. I only got about a mile further before I turned around so I could make it back down before the sun set. But another mile or so, you could make it to one of three lakes, Pothole, Bertha May and Granite lakes. I will come back next year to get to the lakes when I have more time (maybe even camp at the camp grounds) and when the sun is up longer. One last thing, despite being right next to Mount Rainier, you will have almost no views of it as the trees block it most of the time. (PS the map coordinates thing isn't working so do not believe the GSP coords as I didn't set them.)