This is one of my favorite early season hikes. Since I was traveling to Issaquah that day to help my folks out, it would be a sin to not hike this before I arrived at my parents. My dad is recovering from his Hip Operation and is still using a walker so I was willing to spend some time doing some odds and ends for mom and him. I originally planned to get to the trailhead really early so I could spend the late morning and early afternoon with ma and pa. Then I could get back home to relieve Carri of the kids so she could go to the gym. However daylight saving time kicked in that evening, and I decided to sleep an extra hour, which turned into two. Anyway I didn’t arrive at the trailhead parking lot until after 10:00 AM.

I was also excited to break in my new hiking boots that I bought at REI two days prior. After doing a lot of boot research and hearing nothing but praise of the Montrail Torre GTX off of the NWHikers.net forums. I decided to use my 20% off coupon before it expired and purchase them. Tiger was my mountain of choice to de-virginize these boots. I used a pair of heavy socks, since my REI wool socks were in the wash. Big mistake. New boots and cotton socks equates to painful heel blisters.

Started hiking the trail from the jam packed parking lot around 10:15 and hoped that the cloud cover would burn off by the time I reached the top (it didn’t :( ). There were quite a few people on the trail at that time, so if you want solitude this hike needs to be done on a weekday or at the crack of dawn on a weekend. The only other place I’ve seen more people is at, surprise, Mt. Si. I must applaud the WTA and others who were responsible for cleaning up the devastation by January’s storm. The trail was clear the whole way up, and there were massive amounts of felled trees that had been either chain sawed or moved to the side. A few felled trees had been uprooted. When I got to the summit there were about 15 people at the top. I didn’t stay very long, just long enough to drink a pint of water and eat a sports bar. The descent was much easier on my blistered heels. Must have passed 30 people on the way back to my car.

Trip time was 1 hour and 20 minutes up.. 45 minutes down.