Snoqualmie Mountain – 6,278 ft
Eric Gilbertson
October 23, 2016
I left Seattle at 1:30pm on Sunday afternoon under sunny skies, and was out hiking by 2:45pm from the Alpental parking lot. The trail up snoqualmie mountain is unofficial, so it’s unmarked and unmaintained, but I found it pretty easily just 50ft south of the snow lakes trailhead.
The snoqualmie mountain trail basically goes straight up the mountain, gaining 3,000ft in about 1.5 miles. That’s even steeper than the trails in New England! I reached the summit in about an hour, and had to change into my micro spikes to walk through all the fresh snow up there.
I was ahead of schedule, so decided to try to hike up nearby Guye Peak as well. I bushwacked along the ridge and eventually met a user trail up Guye Peak. I soon reached the north summit, but couldn’t see any safe way to get to the taller south summit 100ft away. It looked like cliffs all along the ridge. I would later read that there is a 4th class way around to the summit, but I couldn’t find it then so turned around. I soon made it back to the car and drove back to Seattle.
© 2016, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.
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