Elevation Gain: Approximately 2600 ft.
Min: 386 ft. Max: 2806 ft.
Time: 9:30 am - 2:30 pm
Weather: Sunny and cool, mostly cloudy.
This week was the first time in 5 weeks I was not going out to snowshoe. It was a crazy weekend. I flew from Tacoma down to San Francisco on Friday night, spent all day Saturday in San Fran, flew out at 7:00 am on Sunday, and had a my buddy from work, whom I have hiked with more than anyone else ever and he has been on 10 of these 24 hikes so far, pick me up and drive me straight to the trailhead. He took me to the airport on Friday, and I left my pack and boots in his trunk, and I had packed hiking clothes to wear for the hike. I did not want to mess with the logistics of a snowshoe trip so we planned a hike only about 30 minutes from the Sea-Tac airport.
There was a great network of trails in the West Tiger Mountain Park, so we were confident we could walk around a lot. We got to the trailhead around 9:30 am and I noticed my phone only was at about half power. I tried to use the GPS tracking app, but my phone died on the hike. Here is part of the track: West Tiger Mt. I did have a full charged camera though. Anyway, we geared up quickly and hit the trail up to the summit of West Tiger 3. This was about a 3 to 3.5 mile hike pretty much all uphill. Immediately, I was struck by how much I love hiking in the woods. I love snowshoeing, but it had been awhile since I had walked on a forrest floor of dirt covered in dead leaves and being surrounded by trees, but ferns and rhododendrons. Hiking is magical and awesome.
We made great time and were at the peak of West Tiger 3 by 11 am. And there were at least 30 people around here, no joke. It was a great day, by PNW standards, for February and many people got out to enjoy it. We sat around to eat a snack and plane what to do next. Just about everyone else went back the way we came up, and I was almost positive there was a trail that continued to West Tiger 2. We found the trail and continued on. Soon we were at the next peak, which had a big power transformer or cell phone tower surrounded by chain link fence at the top. We continued on down a dirt road for about 30 minutes and found the next trail sign confirming we were on our way to West Tiger 1.
After a short, but steep walk up another dirt road we were at the summit. While there was another transformer/cell tower thing, the view of the valley below was spectacular. We could see part of Rainier below the clouds, the fertile farm land of valley below, and the buildings of downtown Seattle. There was a trail leading back into the woods just to the left of all the chain link fence surrounding the transformer, and we choose to take it and see if we could loop around the peaks.
As we descended into the woods, it got eerily dark in the tall trees. Eventually we came across another hiker and confirmed we could loop around back to the trail. His directions were to turn left then right then we would get back to the trailhead. We followed, but after the right turn we felt we were heading deeper into the forrest. We turned around and stayed left. We came to another intersection, we went right and then the same thing happened. It looked like we were heading back up the mountain. We turned around and took another left. This trail was marked the West Tiger Mountain trail and we had seen signs for this trail earlier in the day, so we were finally confident we were at least heading back to somewhere we had been before. Sure enough, after about an hour we were back on the main thoroughfare and back among the crowds.
We walked down and spent a total of about 5 hours walking in the woods. We took very few breaks and other than the snack break at West Tiger 3, the breaks were short and only to hydrate or take off a layer. I am confident we did at least 10 miles. It felt great.
Orchid: Walking in the woods with one of my best friends.
Onion: Too good of a weekend to have an onion.
Picture:
Goggle Map
Note about the next two weeks: The next two hikes are already planned. Next Sunday night, I will be in Goblin Valley State Park in Southeast Utah spending the night with 12 students and 2 other teachers. On Monday, we are going into Dark Canyon in SE Utah. We will spend the next 7 days and 6 nights backpacking in the canyon. The next two blogs will be posted, on or before Tuesday March 1. There is a chance that next week's blog can be posted on Monday Feb. 21, but I make no promise there. No worries about me and my integrity, I will be hiking in the backcountry the next two weekends for hike 25 and 26. I am so pumped to have my half year mark in one of the most remote areas of the lower 48!
have fun, be careful and take lots of pics!
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