Iron Horse Trail (Lake Annette Trailhead to S.E. Keechelus Lake)

Iron Horse Trail - June 22nd, 2014

I-90 Corridor

Mileage: 14 Miles (One way)

Elevation Gain: 400 ft.

Dogs Allowed

I mentioned in an earlier post about the grand summer 2014 hiking plan Allison and I created for this hiking season. One of the problems that continued to cause us headaches was the unpredictability of the snow levels in the mountains. The snow level and dates the mountains are finally clear of snow can vary greatly from year to year and unfortunately during the summer 2014 hiking season, the snow did not melt away as early as it had in previous years. This caused us to have to alter our planned hikes for several weekends, including the weekend of June 22nd. 

We had initially planed to hike the Kendal Katwalk. This hike takes its namesake from a football field- length portion of the hike where the trail was literally blasted into the side of a steep mountain. WTA notes, " the name Kendall Katwalk conjures up an image of a narrow pathway blasted out of a steeply sloped rock face, that’s part of it. But the whole package includes old-growth forest, gorgeous wildflowers, and stunning views into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness from both sides of the pass below Kendall Peak, where the Katwalk begins." Needless to say this was on our Washington hiking, bucket list. Unfortunately, by the time this hike came due on the calendar, the snow level was still too high to safely complete the catwalk, so I had to come up with plan B. Although, I'm kind of sad that we didn't get to do the Katwalk. Even though we were initially quite disappointed, it was also kind of fortuitous because it made me find a really exotic hike I may not have discovered otherwise. 

The hike I ended up planning had several very diverse sections, including the most notable, a 2 mile long underground section that followed an abandoned railroad tunnel. The final hike ended up being a 14 mile section of Washington State Park's Iron Horse Trail, a 110 mile path that follows an old railroad track from Ollalie State Park to Cle Elum in Eastern Washington. I picked a section that went from Keechelus Lake through to the Lake Annette Trailhead. As I mentioned before, this hike ended up being very diverse. Starting from the Lake Annette trailhead, the hike begins in lush forests which quickly give way to the original path of the railroad, which is now a large open gravel corridor. This section of the hike offered fantastic views of the cascades and lasted until we got to the mouth of the tunnel. 

The actual underground section of the hike took approximately 45 minutes. For the majority of this time we were in complete darkness. This combined with the temperature plummeting almost 40 degrees and sharing the tunnels with dimly lite strangers made for a slightly spooky journey which was not exactly enjoyable for some members of the hiking group. Luckily everyone made it out alive. Since Iron horse trail was originally a railroad track, it is graded much more gently than almost any other hike in the I-90 corridor, so despite clocking in at 14 miles it was a pretty easy hike. Despite being in the mountains, we only gained 400 feet of elevation, mostly because of the tunnel. 

The final section of the hike took place on the Western bank of the Keechelus Lake. The lake is an irrigation control reservoir and the beginning of the Yakima River. With a water storage capacity of 195,000,000 m³, Keechelus' brilliant blue offered stunning contrast to surrounding peaks of the cascades. This section of the hike was 6.5 miles on a flat gravel path. I forgot to mention earlier in the post that in order to make this into a 14 mile day hike and not at 28 mile overnight, we took two vehicles and broke the our party into two groups who started from opposite ends of the trail. We swapped keys when the groups converged in the middle of the hike and then met back up at the Lake Annette parking lot to regroup before heading back to Seattle.  

Overall it was a really good day and the tunnel section of the hike provided a completely new hiking experience.   Iron Horse Trial is a very bike friendly trail, and if I ever get to go back I think we will try to bike a larger section of the trail rather than hike.

East Peak via Rattlesnake Ridge Trail

At only 35 miles from downtown Seattle, Rattlesnake Ledge is one of the most popular hikes in Washington and definitely offers unquestionably the best visual payoff vs difficulty of any hike this close to Seattle.  We decided to do a modified version of the traditional 3.8 mile hike to Rattlesnake Ledge, tacking on an additional 5 miles and 1600 ft of elevation gain to reach East Peak.  The view in the picture above can be reached just above Rattlesnake Ledge and is one of the best views I've seen anywhere in Washington.

Unfortunately, because this hike is very close to Seattle and relatively easy, compared to other hikes in the region, it is also very popular.  The main parking lot was almost full when we arrived at 11 a.m.  We passed throngs of other hikers on the way up to Rattlesnake Ledge.  Amazingly, Allison and Katie have done this hike before and assured me that the crowd was actually much smaller than it had been on their last outing.  Despite the population density, we had a great and quick hike up to the ledge.  We hung out for a few minutes, had some food and then continued our way up hill.  Most of the hikers only go up to the ledge, so we got a nice break from the crowd for the majority of the middle section of the hike.

  About half way up to East Peak, we ran into patches of snow which continued sporadically all the way to the peak.  It was an absolutely a beautiful day during the entire hike, and we had seen pictures of a view of Mt. Rainier which was supposedly taken from East Peak.  Unfortunately we were slightly disappointed with the view, which did not rival the view from the Ledge and did not contain Mt. Rainier, when we finally reached the peak.  We had a nice hiking lunch, chatted a bit with a fellow hiker and headed back down the mountain.  The trip down was fairly uneventful except for a small detour where we ventured out onto a rather precarious ledge a little above Rattlesnake Ledge.

This ledge was surrounded on three sides by a several hundred foot drop.  It has been a long time since I have been near the edge of something like this, and I have to say that I'm a bit more afraid of heights at this point in my life than I remember having been in the past.  Needless to say I was relieved when we made our way off the ledge and back onto the trail.

Overall this was one of the groups favorite hikes, despite the crowds, especially the Rattlesnake Ledge portion of the hike. It has great payoff, the trail is graded well, and it's a very manageable drive.

WTA Link

Mt. Si via Boulder Garden Loop and Old Si Trail

Mt. Si - April 27th, 2014

Mileage: 8.4 miles

Elevation Gain: 3150 feet

Snoqualmie Pass - North Bend Area

Dog Friendly

Difficulty: Intermediate

Pass Required: WA Discover Pass

The pacific Northwest is a paradise for anyone who likes the outdoors.  From many locations in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia you can hop in your car any day of the year and have relatively fast access to an enormousness amount of different landscapes and biodiversity including snow capped mountains, the pacific ocean and sound, deciduous rain-forests and desert. 

One of the few problems you encounter in this region is snow in the mountains...  Snow that stays way into the summer months in many of the regions we like to hike.  I'm sure if you grew up or spent any time in a mountainous region, you probably wouldn't be surprised to run into a trail that was impassable because of snow coverage in July, but having grown up in the South, I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that I have to worry about snow in the summer.

Because of the snow, many of our favorite mountain hikes don't open up until very late in summer, which means we are left with very limited options when we want to do a hike with any elevation gain.  One of these options is Mt. Si which is mostly clear of snow, except at the very top, quite early in the season.  This was the third time I've taken the hiking group up Mt. Si already this season.  Luckily, there are three different ascent options for this particular mountain.  On our latest hike we decided to take the old trail which is no longer maintained and much more difficult and technical than the newer trail.

The old trail ended up being difficult enough that about halfway through the hike, I was starting to wonder if I was going to scare some of the members of the hiking group away from future hikes!  This was the second consecutive hike we did that weekend and most of the members who attended the first hike at Rattlesnake Ledge also came to this hike.  As a result, some of the members who haven't been hiking as much this season, as well as some who have, were completely exhausted by around mile 3.  The weather was also challenging on everyone's moral.  It started raining almost immediately after we arrived at the trail-head and the rain proceeded to turn into snow as the temperature dropped below freezing  at about 3000 ft.

Luckily everything ended up being OK in the end. We took lots of breaks, had some food and slowed the pace down significantly and everyone was able to make it to the summit in one piece.  Everyone was so tired by the time we reached the summit that we made a group decision to take the newer, well maintained trail on the way down.  The only downside of this option was that by taking this trail we would arrive at a parking lot that was 2 miles away from where our vehicles were parked.  We decided I would either walk to get one of the cars or hitchhike.  I ended up walking which increased my total mileage for the day to 10.4.  Lets just say I slept like a baby that night!

Overall it was a very difficult, but still very enjoyable hike.  I was quite pleased with the reactions of everyone I hiked with after we were talking about the hike a few days later.  The group consensus was that we need to train more rather than do easier hikes, a sentiment that mirrored what I was thinking.

Tiger Mountain: West Tiger #3

West Tiger 3 - March 23rd, 2014
Mileage: 5 miles
Elevation Gain: 2100 feet
Issaquah Alps: I-90 Corridor
Dog Friendly
Difficulty: Intermediate

As we began to hike Tiger Mountain we had many questions, most of which we initially kept to ourselves. It's hard to talk and breathe heavily at the same time... However after about 3/4 of a mile our muscles were warmed up and we could speak again. Why the hell is it called Tiger Mountain? There are no tigers, to my knowledge Tiger is not a Native American word, nor is it a popular surname. So why? The other two popular hiking areas in the Issaquah Alps (Soaring Eagle and Cougar Mountain) both have appropriate Pacific Northwest Names? So who fell down on the job with Tiger Mountain? What's more did they just suffer from the most stupendous lack of creativity ever? Not only did they give it some arbitrary animal name, but they actually named THREE mountains that! This is how I imagine the dialogue:

Nameless Bureaucrat #1: Hmmmm how about an animal?
Nameless Bureaucrat #2: Well you've already used Eagle, Cougar, Rattlesnake is just up the way a little bit, what animal do you propose?
Nameless Bureaucrat #1: Well my daughter likes tigers....
Nameless Bureaucrat #2: But sir there's actually 3 mountains!!
Nameless Bureaucrat #1: Damn it man! I'm an ideas guy! I'm not practical sort it out yourself!!
Door slams
Nameless Bureaucrat #2: Fuck it. I'll just number them.

And that is the completely realistic, definitely NOT completely fabricated story of the naming of Tiger Mountain!

Aside from the inane naming (say that 3 times fast!) we really enjoyed this hike. We had some later engagements so we did this hike pretty early in the day, which was nice for a couple of reasons. 1) Fewer people, by all accounts West Tiger 3 is pretty crowded, so I'm guessing (especially later in the season) do this hike early. 2) There is something awesome about summitting a mountain early (even if it's just a small one) you feel very accomplished and you've still got the rest of the day to gorge on nasty food! Hey you earned it!

Overall the trail itself is in very good condition. The grade isn't terribly steep, but it does pretty much start out going up with no real warm up (the virtues of which I've expounded on before). Maybe if you park at the lower parking lot that would help and then you could avoid the horrendous pot-holes on the road up to the upper parking area.

My biggest problem with West Tiger #3 is the lack of payoff. You do a fair amount of work 2100 ft of elevation gain in a little over two miles is no slouch. Despite what WTA says though, the soaring views of Issaquah, Lake Sammamish and paragliders off of Poo Poo Point just really aren't visible through the tree tops. You get glimpses and you keep thinking it'll open up, but it doesn't. For better views in the area I would say Mt. Si, Poo Poo Point, Rattlesnake ledge (if you can bear the crowds), are all better options.


Overall I think this is a pretty good hike as long as you are enjoying the hike itself and not looking for a reward. The grade is decent, the trail in nice condition and the interior pretty. But if you want views go elsewhere.

Thanks to our friend Daniel for the pictures. Our memory card got fried!

Tiger Mountain West

Tiger Mountain West - March 16th, 2014

Mileage: Various
Elevation Various
Issaquah Alps
Dog Friendly
Difficulty: Various (mostly easy-med)

Tiger Mountain is similar to Soaring Eagle and Cougar Mountain in that there are a lot of well signed small individual trails that can be mixed and matched together depending on your own preference. Today for instance: We were all kind of hung over from our awesome St. Patrick's day dinner. So what we wanted was to be asleep. I actually told Chris on the way to Katie's that if she said anything about staying home and watching movies all day I would say "YES!!" I found out as we started our hike Katie had the exact same plan. Luckily neither of us said anything.

Out of the parks I mentioned above, this is by far my favorite. The trails are in pretty good condition. Bonneville trail has some small lake-sized puddles, but other than that it's all pretty nice. This would be an awesome park if you were into mountain biking or trail running. We did the Around the Lake trail, Bus Trail, Bonneville trail and High school trail. Around the Lake trail is something of a misnomer since it really only goes on one side of the lake, but it does provide you access to trail options if you do, in fact, want to go around the lake.  Which is basically what we did, with one important/terrifying extra. Which I'll get to later...

Around the Lake and Bus Trail are both in forested area, it's really pretty in here. Despite the fact that it was cold and wet, the weather gave a really nice ambiance to the surrounding forest. Then all of a sudden there's a freaking bus. What?! That's right, a bus. It's all rusted up, with bullet holes, and it's been totally gutted. It's creepy as hell. Katie and I are both convinced it's haunted by dead children. There's just something unsettling about gutted machinery in the middle of the woods. 

At first we thought we were going to go up Nook trail, but then when it started to climb uphill we decided that was for another day. So we went back down and back along Bus trail and found the connecting trail to Bonneville trail, which is mostly not terribly pretty as it runs under huge power lines, it is pretty when you're near the lake, but we didn't do that until later.

There aren't a lot of maps throughout the park and we weren't thinking terribly straight and we just sort of glanced at one on the way out. We figured we'd just keep making rights-ish. But we turned left onto Bonneville, but that's not where the trouble started. 

We got onto High school Trail. Katie and I wanted to take Adventure (Time) Trail. Chris didn't want to but we did stop for a photo op. By the way if you don't watch Adventure Time you should probably do that. NOW.

So we continued down and just planned on taking our next right. Then, suddenly, we heard a loud popping noise that sounded a lot like gunfire. Nah, must just be metal scraping metal or something and the trees are just filtering the sound. Then it happened again. And again. HOLY FUCK THERE IS SOMEBODY MURDERING PEOPLE!!! We heard a bunch of sirens and emergency vehicle noises headed in that direction and pretty much freaked out, not full blown panic though. Have you ever heard the phrase "They turned and fled?" Yuuuup. I was actually more scared when the shooting stopped because I figured the shooters were now on foot racing through the trees and they can't leave any witnesses!!! We met some people coming along the trail and freaked them out with our crazy tales of gunfire and sirens. A very nice old lady, who was now pretty concerned, told us that it was most likely just the gun range that was down there. So now we felt a lot less frightened, though perhaps a bit sheepish. While it was just a coincidence that the sirens happened at the same time it was enough to scare the bejeezus out of us. Why on earth there isn't a sign saying "Don't worry it's just a gun range!" is kind of beyond me.

The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful, we went back the way we had come, just going around the backside of the lake, which was quite lovely in a late winter kind of way. The viewing area that we took a picture of is going to be perfect for a class that Chris and I are going to give for our friends on survival, basic forest first aid etc. All in all, despite the ill effects of Irish whiskey, it was a good day. And it ended with some of the best Chinese food I've had (China Gourmet in Shoreline) I'd highly recommend this as a nice early season hike with a lot of options and variability. 

Twin Falls

Twin Falls - January 12th(ish), 2014
Mileage: 3 miles
Elevation Gain: 500 feet
Olallie State Park: I-90 Corridor
Dog Friendly
Difficulty: Very Easy

So this post is going to visually look a little confusing, because in some of these pictures you'll notice it's gray and rainy and in some of them it's sunny and beautiful. That's because when we hiked in January it was raining enough that we didn't use our cameras very much at all. Most of the pictures are from when Chris and I hiked this back in October of... 2012 maybe? Eesh.

The pictures from our hike in January were taken by our friend Eric (pictured above far left). So thanks to Eric for covering our lazy butts. So! On to info about the hike...

So Twin falls is a super easy, very pretty day hike just outside of North Bend. It's one of the few hikes available outside of the Issaquah Alps in the cascades that's pretty much open year round. The amount of pay off for the amount of work is also pretty great. It's really pretty throughout the hike, and the trail itself is in very good condition.

The trail itself starts off at a very, very easy grade going along the river. Great opportunities for photography. The whole area is very damp. The North Bend area actually gets a lot more rain than Seattle, so it's often very damp out here. Despite that the trail had minimal water on it, even considering it was raining when we were there last.

I always tell people when they go hiking in the pacific northwest they should always carry at least one compass. Not only is that just very good advice in general, but especially in the North West you are pretty much up shit creek if you get lost and don't have a way to tell what direction you should be going. Depending on the time of year (read: most of the year) you might have no visibility from the sun in order to get your bearings. As for that who "moss grows on the south side" business, anybody who has been in the Central/North Cascades, and definitely on the Peninsula can tell you that moss just grows everywhere. You would hardly ever be able to use this trick effectively.

Anyway, after a while you leave the river, but it's always close, and you start climbing some small hills. There are a couple of really nice vistas from the tops of some of these. After a while though you'll come to a point where the trail splits. Go to the right first. This will lead you down some steps (try not to think about having to walk back up them) and on to a very pretty viewing platform which let's you look at the bottom of the bottom most falls (very top photo). The view from the plat form is very nice. Now go back up those steps!

Very shortly after you rejoin the main trail you'll come to a very nice bridge that spans the canyon and offers you some very nice views of the river canyon and the falls themselves. You have the option to continue up the trail from the bridge. The first time we hiked it Chris and I went on for about 1/2 an hour after the bridge, but didn't really see anything worth continuing on for. Nice, short hike, good for beginners, with very decent payoff.

View from bridge looking up the canyon toward the falls

View from bridge looking down the canyon

WTA Listing