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Snoqualmie Mountain 6267ft From Alpental July 3, 2003

Kim and I finally escaped from our house remodeling and graduation tasks and got back out into the mountains. Even though Snoqualmie Mtn is the highest of the mountains in the local Snoqualmie Pass area, we had never climbed it. So we set our sites on it! We arrived at the Alpental parking lot around 8:45am, put on our boots and headed up the climbers trail. Someone had recently done some brushing on the lower part of the trail, so the usual undergrowth of alder, willow, salal, huckleberry, and heather was fairly easy to hike through. I had my head down and was focused on getting up the steep climbers trail, but Kim noticed with much pleasure the bright crimson and gold honeysuckles speckling the shadows, among other wildflowers. She would call out, "Hey did you see the paintbrush back there?" "Yep" (pant, pant) "Did you see those little bluebells?" "Yep"

Around the third "Did you see", I started slowing down and admiring the beautiful wildflowers that were all around. I was so excited to be back in the mountains again that I forgot that It's the journey, not the destination that's important. So we took an easy pace up the steep trail through the trees, occaisionally stopping to look across the valley to Alpental ski resort and down to the parking lot where our car was getting steadily smaller. It was a sunny, bluebird day and we were basking in the sunshine and the alpine air!

Soon we reached the open talus field and saw the old sign in the tree, showing the directions for Snow Lake Tr, Guye Peak Tr, and Snoqualmie Mtn Tr. Michael and I had missed this sign a few years ago when we tried to hike up Snoqualmie Mtn, and ended up on Cave Ridge. (In our defense, it was still dark when we reached this point, having started at 4am!) Kim and I were happy to have made it nearly a third of the way up, and we hadn't even hit the "Wall" yet. The trail continued steeply up, just to the right of an audible waterfall. We eventually crossed the stream at the edge of a large cliff and continued hiking up through the forest.

After 30 minutes or so, we emerged from the forest and found ourselves in a beautiful boulder strewn meadow at the base of the ridge that leads up to the summit. Soon we were looking down into a snowy bowl, and even farther down was the summit of nearby Guye Peak. We hiked up the dusty switchbacks that finally brought us to the summit ridge. The views were incredible! I had seen this area from the summits of other nearby peaks, but Snoqualmie has the best views, IMHO.

We made our way over to the main summit where two older men (who passed us on the way up while we were eating lunch) were settling in for a summit nap. We visited with these two seasoned mountain men - one said "Unless you're 45 years old, I climbed my first mountain before you were probably born" It was pretty fun talking with them. One said, "My first mountain was Mt Hood, and it just about killed me because I was so out of shape". Then the other chimed in, "Mt St. Helens was my first mountain and it wiped me out too". "I missed out on that one, unfortunately", I said to a round of laughter.

elevation gain: 3100'

4 miles round trip

started hiking: 8:50am

arrived at summit 11:50am (after a 30 minute lunch break)

well deserved summit nap: 1 hour

started hiking down: 12:52pm

back at car: 3:00pm (leisurely pace down)