Candy Mountain Trail — Saturday, Mar. 3, 2018

This was my first trip up the relatively new Candy Mountain Trail. It's a great trail for a quick "get out of the house" hike. It's extremely well maintained, very family friendly and overall a pretty easy hike. The first 0.75 miles is mostly flat with a very slight incline and wanders through a small community of high end homes. Then the trail zig-zags up to the 1,400 ft. summit with a moderate grade. I know Badger Mountain by far has been the Tri-Cities most popular trail system for a long time, I imagine Candy Mountain Trail is now the 2nd most popular hike in the area. On the way up you see groups of people serpentine the entire mountain at a pretty steady rate. There was about 2 dozen cars in the parking lot when I arrived, and it has room for several dozen more. While it's not a very challenging hike, I enjoyed its 360 degree views of the Tri-City/Benton City/Hanford Reach area and plan to be back when I need a quick hike in a time crunch or want an easy scenic hike to take visiting friends and family on. Roundtrip from trailhead to summit and back was 3.6 miles.