Mt. Washington (Cascades) 10-27-07

Mt. Washington, elev 4800', north of the Chester Morse reservoir

Interior central Cascades

A very crazy week promised to end with a beautiful autumn weekend, so a fellow school nurse and I went out I-90 to Mt. Washington, west of the Snoqualmie Pass summit at exit 38. The drive started with considerable fog, especially in the urban valleys of Seattle and the Eastside, but farther east found a bright blue sky shining over the multicolored mountains. Mountain laurel, vine maple, birch, aspen, and oak were all just past their prime, but there was a dominant rust color that blended in so well with the evergreens.

Fog towards the west

It is a 5 mile hike to the summit, and somehow we missed the turnoff halfway up to the new trail (and nicely-done new trail, thank you to those responsible for that!) and took the old trail past a pond that had ice cracking between logs and branches that had with met the water due to wind or beaver. We came to a spot where the temperature dropped to the upper 30s - wooo, it got really nippy really fast - and the beginning of frost and ice on the trail. The trail itself is not as steep as some, but it was very rocky and wet leaves were both blessing and hindrance as they softened the path but made it awfully slick in places. After a couple of icy scrambles that left us considering how much care we would have to take to navigate the steep, curved frozen hills of dirt on the way down, we located the new, improved trail! It was a boulevard compared to what we'd been on, so we opted to continue to the top.

Beautiful Washington State granite

Ice

First snow and snowball of the season!

The autumn colors were not prevalent on this hike; most of the leaves had fallen or there simply weren't alot of eye-popping deciduous trees. The reason you go to Mt. Washington is for the views. Oh, my. One can see Mt. Rainier (a little cloud-covered, but right there on the near horizon), Mt. Baker over Mt. Teneriffe and Green Mtn., and Glacier Peak in the distance. For most of the morning there was fog over parts of Lake Washington and the nearby valleys, but it cleared up in the early afternoon. It was one gorgeous day for a hike!

Sami and the weather station, summit

Glacier Peak

Mt. Rainier (lower part of mountain)