Cedar Butte

25 February 2011

After an 8-10-inch snowfall and below-freezing temperatures for two days in North Bend, the skies cleared. C.J. and I decided to try a local hike/ski/snowshoe trip along the Iron Horse rails-to-trails State Park from Rattlesnake Lake at Cedar Falls.


We began with a ski on the well-traveled railroad grade, meeting only one skier who was returning from the east. Most of the tracks must have been made by foot travelers from the previous day. We passed a group of volunteers who were grubbing out scotch broom for a springtime Greenway celebration. Of course most of the weeds were buried in the foot of (very cold) snow.


When we reached the Cedar Butte trailhead in a mile, we found that no one had been there before us. The route started off steep enough that we removed our skis right away and buried them in snow about 100 ft up the trail and donned our snowshoes. Right away we began to run into the most serious obstacle to our passage: the weight of the snow had bent over many of the hemlock and other saplings and blocked the trail. It was a tiring...and snowy... job to clear the trail every hundred feet or so.



Eventually we got into older forest and no longer had snow-laden saplings to deal with. However, the trail was indistinct at times and we were glad to get onto steeper slopes where the switchbacks were obvious. We had already passed a viewpoint for the Boxley Blowout just before a relatively level stretch, and then we descended to the Saddle Junction.

Although the sign indicates "southside", we did not see a trail heading that way and climbed the last of the 900 ft elevation gain to summit.






About halfway up we found an overlook to Rattlesnake Ledges and the lake. It was a good spot to stop for lunch since it was already nearly 1400 - this half-mile hike had seemed more like a mile-and-a-half.





It was good to spot the bright blue sky through the trees as we approached the summit. A gap in the trees gave us a view to the north right up the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie with Mts Si and Tenerife on the left and with Mailbox on the right.


The temperature had stayed below freezing the whole day and we were ready to head down as soon as we took the traditional summit photo.

Since we had removed the worst of the tangles on the way up, the trip down took only a half hour, one-third of the time to make the ascent. We were home and recuper- ating by 1700.


Note: We parked round 1100 in the unplowed Iron Horse SP parking lot and then found out that it was supposedly a SnoPark with a fee (daily, $20!). I moved the car a few hundred feet west to the Rattlesnake Lake parking lot which has no parking fee. The summit of Cedar is about 1880 ft with an ascent of 900 ft according to Dan Nelson's guidebook.

Snow Lake Trail

18 February 2011

(Photo, above) George snowshoeing on the lower part of the Snow Lake Trail on a few inches of new snow over four feet of base. The temperature was low enough that we were able to wear fleece jackets all the way up the valley to the headwall above Source Lake. In the photo above George is crossing a gentle snow slope. It wasn't until later...

that the slopes that the trail crossed were steeper. In some cases it was clear that there was some danger of minor surface snow slides although the avalanche danger was forecast to be only moderate.

This is C.J. (above) crossing steeper snow slopes and slides near the valley headwall. There was not much of a snowfield above us so we felt fairly safe just spreading out so we could cross the slope one at a time.

The sky was a deep blue above the peaks on the Denny Mountain-Bryant Peak ridge although later the clouds shaded the sun .

Instead of continuing up the steep headwall on a route that was not obvious, we stopped for lunch on an open slope protected by trees above us.

In addition to the stunning scenery, we had a group of young boarders below us who had fashioned a couple of jumps and were convincing each other to go first. When a skier took this jump (shown above in a telephoto view) we were astounded that he didn't just sail over the jump but did a complete backflip (or whatever the current term is).

Oh, yeah, it was a good trip!

We left from Alpental lower parking lot and were able to walk most of the way on a trail that had been packed hard before the most recent few inches of snow. There were a few tracks but they must have been from the previous day because we met no one else on the trail until we were almost back to the trailhead.

It was just as well that we didn't need snowshoes until we reached the headwall above Source Lake because we had to cross two streams both of which required climbing down into a gully and then back up the other side. The snowshoes and attached crampons were definitely useful as we started to cross snowslides although before the next trip I'll have to try something to keep snow from building up in the crampons.

There were a fair number of folks on skis, boards and snowshoes who had come up the bottom of the valley directly from Alpental (or, in the case of some skiers, had traversed high so they could ski down the couloirs below The Tooth, Bryant and Chair Peak). If we had continued on somewhat farther, we probably would have run into snowshoe tracks leading to the pass over to Snow Lake.

Mt. Si Talus Loop Trail

10 February 2011


Carpe diem! Sunny skies but cold air as we climbed the Mt. Si trail once again to Snag Flats (1.8 mi from the trailhead) passing the lower end of the Loop at 0.8 mi.

The Talus Loop was a much more pleasant trail, first contouring through a deep, forested drainage and then breaking out into the bright sun of a south-facing talus slope. The trail had been nicely defined across the talus, and a dry-laid stone wall placed on the uphill side. In the wall a space had been left for a bench alcove complete with backrest. It was a great spot to stop for lunch.


Moving on, the trail descended gradually through moss-covered trees then began a couple of switchbacks. At the east end of the second one, when it appeared we were following a very old skid road, we continued east, crossed a stream and in less than ten minutes reached the Mt. Si road. We could have followed it down to the trailhead at the schoolbus turnaround, but that would have meant a long walk on the paved road back to the Mt Si parking lot. We returned to the Talus Loop trail and continued down maybe another half mile to the intersection with the Mt. Si trail again. It was nicer to walk down in the sunshine, rather than the gloom of almost-dark we had experienced last week.

Lots of folks on the Mt. Si trail today, all of them passing us. However, we saw only one person on the Talus Loop trail.

Mount Si...

Due to routefinding error!

2 February 2011

C.J. with a friendly gray jay near the summit

The Talus Loop, accessed from the Mt Si Trailhead, was our goal for this sunny but cold day. Since the route was only 4.2 miles we didn't get on the trail until shortly after noon. Less than a mile up the Mt. Si trail C.J. spotted a trail coming in from the right and (rightly) guessed it was the Talus Loop. I thought that it might be but wanted to start the loop from the higher entrance so we continued up. At about 1.8 miles we found a fork marked "Talus Loop", but I pushed on to the Snag Flats interpretive area where a short boardwalk and some signage explained the old damage due to a 1910 forest fire. Thinking the upper entrance to the loop was still ahead, we pushed up the switchbacks. It wasn't until we had passed the 2.5 mile mark that I became convinced that we had missed our chance to get on the Talus Loop.

A passing hiker confirmed our situation but pointed out that we were almost to the 3-mile mark and that there was a good viewpoint at 3.5 miles. By now it was almost 2 p.m. so we took a break for lunch in a relatively sunny spot. So far it had been cold enough that the trail surface was frozen and ice crystals were poking out of the soil, and the east wind increased the chill factor. The view at 3.5 was to the E and SE and we could see that we were much higher than we had been on the Kamikaze Falls hike because we were looking down at Grouse Ridge. Since the summit was only a half mile farther, we started to break out of the forest by 3 p.m. and soon were in sunshine and warmer air with a view of North Bend and the valley (and the roof of our house glinting in the sun in the photo (left)).




After some additional lunch which we shared with the local gray jays, we scrambled to the base of the Haystack and then back around to the main trail.

By 3:40 we were on the way down. For most of the descent our pace was much faster than when coming up but the strain on our knees and the gathering darkness slowed us down. It wasn't completely dark when we reached the parking lot at 5:45 but we probably would have pulled out our headlamps if we had any farther to go. I hadn't expected to ever climb the 3200 ft ascent and 8 miles of Mt Si trail again, but we were glad that we missed the turnoff for the Talus Loop this time.

Kamikaze Falls Hike

26 January 2011

The rain stopped a day ago and the sun came out so shortly after noon. C.J. and I took the short drive to the roadhead of the old Mt. Si road, now gated and supposedly decommissioned. There is enough room to park 4-5 cars without blocking the gate or encroaching on the school bus turnaround area, but we were the only ones there. C.J.'s watch showed about 1310 as we headed up the road.

About 1/2 mile in we turned right on a side road that quickly became an improved trail which paralleled the road as it climbed the flank of Mt Tenerife. In about a mile we came to an obvious junction and turned right, uphill, on a trail that had been cut through a talus field.

Above the talus field, where we stopped for a scenic lunch break, the trail had just started to switchback when it met the stream that issued from Kamikaze Falls.

Instead of a herd path that followed the stream, the well-designed but rocky trail used another dozen switchbacks to reach the base of the falls (at 2.4 miles,












but that may have been someone's measurement before the switchbacks were cut). We decided against continuing to the top as the sun was already sinking toward the top of Rattlesnake Mountain.















The trip down was considerably faster but the trudge out along the road seemed to take forever. We reached the gate long before we would have had to don our headlamps, but it was after 1700 and it was getting pretty gloomy.

Rewarding ourselves for seizing the day, we ordered up some pizza for dinner.

Windy Pass XC-Ski

19 Jan 2011

After days and days of warm rain C.J. and I were not sure how much snow there would be at Snoqualmie Pass. The temperature dropped below freezing on Tuesday and the Pass Report claimed 3 new inches. We parked at the not-yet-open Hyak Ski Area (Summit East, now) and found a couple of inches of snow atop frozen mashed potatoes.






The trail along the Cold Creek USFS road had not been groomed but there were a few ski tracks showing that three or four folks were out ahead of us. At about 5 km we passed the clearing which used to hold a yurt but now only had a porta-potti.









Beyond the trail began to climb, and switchbacked twice before we got high enough to start getting views of the nearby mountains, Tinkham and Silver. Pretty soon we found a good scenic lunch spot and settled down for some serious soaking up of the sunshine. After lunch we pushed up the trail to (non-)Windy Pass (about 8 km from the parking lot) and a view across to (probably) Kendall Peak through the low clouds.



The slide down took considerably less energy than the uphill slog. It would have been more enjoyable if the trail-grooming snowcat had not passed us just above the second switchback and turned the snow surface into ground-up ice crystals.





There were a couple of places on the way down where the trail had been slightly improved by the groomer, but you still had to be careful when crossing some of the washouts.

Granite Peak Trail

Midweek after Christmas we got a 2-3 inch covering of snow in North Bend followed by temperatures that stayed below freezing. Best of all, the skies cleared and we could see the sun. There wasn't much more snow at the base of Snoqualmie Pass at the Granite Peak/Pratt Lakes trailhead when we started out around noon. With several vehicles in the parking lot, and their occupants on the trail ahead, we weren't surprised to find no need for snowshoes. Even as we climbed higher, the tree foliage seemed to be holding most of the snowfall and the trail remained easily hikable on foot. At the one-mile mark we turned onto the Granite Peak Trail and started climbing more steeply. Another thousand feet of elevation gain brought us to the open slide path that the trail paralleled. We strapped on the snowshoes and stomped out into the thigh-deep snow of a clearing to a spot with a splendid view across the valley to Silver and Tinkham Peaks: another scenic lunch spot. On the way out we kept our snowshoes on until we started to run into some little stream crossings above the junction, then walked down the rest of the way.

Back at the car around 1500, I drove in along the road to Denny Creek CG to the end of plowing at the last private cabin. There were a dozen cars parked there - hikers heading for Franklin Falls (2+mi, or 0.6 mi from Alpental Road) or up the trail toward Melakwa Lake? Cars were also parked on the plowed road into the Annette Lake trailhead - looked like a busy day for snow hikers although we saw only three parties on our short trip (four if you count the family looking for a sledding spot in the woods near the Granite parking lot).