May 19th and it's Carri's 28th birthday. We've got dinner reservations at Schuckers (Fairmont Olympic Hotel) and we're seeing Dido at The Paramount @ 8:00pm. This equates to a horrendous amount of driving for me, considering I live in Sultan and commute to work in Lynnwood. I'll need to leave work early so I can get home and finalize details with our babysitter and pick up the birthday girl. Then drive to Seattle and hope we get to Schuckers in time for our 6:00pm reservation. AGHHHH! You know what, I think I'll take the day off.

I ended up getting on the road later than I had hoped which seems to happen a lot. Granite mountain would most likely take too long, and I would want a nice day for the Mailbox. Mt. Si would be it today then. Let's see how in shape I really am. The uneventful drive from Sultan to the TH took about an hour and I was on my way up the mountain at 9:00am. I highly recommend hiking Si on a weekday to avoid the weekend crowds. The 30 or so people I passed on the trail was nothing compared to the hundreds and hundreds I passed three years ago. The majority of the people were going up whilst I was descending. I saw a lot of red squirrels/chipmunks, and was taken off guard by a cacophony of loud drilling sounds at Snagflats, which I realized must be woodpeckers after recalling the wildlife SN sign. The trail is in really great shape all the way up to the Haystack basin. All the volunteers that have been working on it have done a really good job. It took just under 2 hours to get up to Haystack basin and I hoped I would break out of the clouds apon arrival, but for the second time in 4 days I got skunked. It was very misty on top and I could only just make out the haystack.

Three years ago the last time I was up here with my buddy Adam, I wussed out on scrambling the haystack(It was a clear sunny day too). This time I knew I had to get to the top of that thing or die trying. Jeff Smoot's Climbing Washington's Mountains states the haystack is Class 3, which initially intimidated me a little, since this was going to be the toughest scramble I've ever done in my life. I didn't let this stop me this time. I went up in the mist, and found the scrambling relatively easy. This was true until it dawned on me I would have to go down. Looking down only gave me an adrenaline infusion. No choice now, I had to continue up. I took the right notch up and noticed that someone left a rope at the top for belaying, I wisely stayed away from it. At the top I looked to the right and saw that the final exposed scramble wasn't that far.. I cautiously proceeded up it and reached the summit. The views must be fantastic from up here I thought. I quickly ate lunch and made my hasty retreat. Going down wasn't as bad as I thought, I just took my sweet time and was on my butt most of the way. Finally back ont the basin I made my descent. Jogged down to snag flats, then walked, then jogged until the picnic area, then walked from there to the trailhead.

Even though there were no views, The haystack scramble really made this a truly rewarding hike. Thanks to all those people @ nwhikers.net for giving me the inspiration I needed to get up the haystack!

2 hrs up to the basin, half hour up from basin to summit, and 1 hr 15 minutes down. Only sore calves the next morning.