My partner and I decided to take a sunset hike to mailbox peak in late February. I arrived at the Mailbox Peak trailhead at around 3pm and parked in the lower lot. As I took the short walk up to the trailhead, I passed by signs saying that the upper parking lot would close at 4pm.
Because it was a cold winter day, my partner and I dressed in layers and brought daypacks with water, headlamps, sunglasses, and microspikes. We also brought trekking poles.
We decided to take the Mailbox Peak LOOP trail, counter-clockwise with the OLD Mailbox Peak trail on the ascent and NEW Mailbox Peak trail on the descent, because we wanted to take a gentler route down in the dark.
We passed by the trailhead to the OLD Mailbox Peak trail first, which looked like your run-of-the-mill trail bulletin board. However, we nearly missed the trailhead to the NEW Mailbox Peak trail, which was a nearly non-descript left turn. Keep your GPS out so you don't miss it!
The trail was relatively uncrowded -- we had encountered around a dozen people (and one dog!) on the trail. Around when we crossed the 1000ft elevation mark, we needed to put on microspikes due to all the ice present on the trail. I found that the OLD Mailbox Peak trail took a lot of mental fortitude to get up, because it was 2.5 miles of extremely steep terrain with no relief. It took us 2.5 hours to get us 2.5 miles of terrain (1mph; our average uphill speed is 2mph).
The first 2 miles were not particularly interesting as we were winding through the forest, but we were so excited when we reached the junction between the OLD Mailbox Peak trail, the NEW Mailbox Peak trail, and the trail to the summit. As soon as we got on the trail to the summit, we were swept away by the views of the Cascades that opened up. As we approached the summit, it got windier, and we needed to get hoods and gloves on to keep us warm.
The trail to the summit is quite steep and snowy. Because it was late in the day, we were able to follow other people's tracks up the mountain. In summer the route up to the summit is usually a scramble up a talus field, but at this time of year, the route was completely covered in snow. There were a couple of false summits on our way to the top, but we knew we had made it when, lo and behold, we saw the mailbox!
We were the last hikers at Mailbox Peak that evening and got to enjoy a stunning sunset over the Cascades and Mount Rainier in the distance.
We made sure to begin our descent before the sun fully set. We carefully followed our tracks back down. A hiker that we had spoken to earlier on the trail had said that he had lost footing and slid down the mountain, and heeding his warning, we took it down slowly.
Once we made it back to the summit junction, we put our headlamps on and began our descent down the NEW Mailbox Peak Trail at dusk.
Because we descended in the dark, there wasn't much to see beyond a peek-a-boo view of the city lights towards the top of the trail and a wooden bridge over a creek crossing. The trail crossed through several smaller streams as well, and we were lucky to have water-resistant footwear on. The trail around the streams can be very icy, so don't take your micro-spikes off too soon! We also saw maybe 5 separate instances of shrews scurrying around on the trail that evening.
It took us 2.5 hours to descend the trail for a roundtrip hike time of 5 hours.
When we returned to the trailhead, we encountered two other hikers whose car had gotten locked in the Upper Lot past closing time. We waited with them around 20 minutes before Department of Natural Resources employee came to unlock the gate for them.
Overall, the hike to Mailbox Peak was both challenging and rewarding. I can't wait for my next adventure there!
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