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Trip Report    

CHS 2 Hike - Rattlesnake Mountain Grand Traverse

Todd Cleland and I led a small group of CHS-2 students on a hot but wonderful traverse with great views, a nice breeze, 23 bird species, foxgloves and fireweed, and afterward for extra mileage, a walk around part of the lake.

Courtenay Schurman Courtenay Schurman
July 08, 2025
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Rattlesnake Lake parking lot had plenty of availability when we arrived at 7 a.m. to deposit 3 cars and shuttle to the NW corner to start our traverse. The gate was not yet open when we started our hike at 7:40 a.m.

    There is ZERO running water anywhere on the ridge, but we did find a nice flowing stream on the east side of the lake when we tacked on .6 miles to get our 12 miles for CHS-2 targets for July. WAY colder than the lake temperature! If you do any part of this with canine companions please be sure to bring ample water for them, as well.

    Even on a hot summer day (it was mid-80's at the cars by 1:30 p.m.) this trail has lots of shade except for one segment that has been logged. Get an early start to avoid the heat. untitled-14.jpg

    Latrines were stocked with TP on NW and SE portions of the trail. Very few bugs except early morning in the sun. Dry conditions mean comfortable albeit hot hiking.

    This is one of the loveliest quality trails in terms of springy loamy dirt tread - our feet were very happy until we tacked on 1.2 miles of cement travel to extend our mileage to the July specifications for Conditioning for Hiking Series with the Mountaineers.

    If Mt. Washington turns you off because of rocks and the prospect of ankle rolling, give the traverse a try, or visit Grand Prospect out and back. Most of of the crowds stick to the lower ledge (4 miles round trip). I only found one dog bag and one stray water bottle, awesome job hikers!

Four of us enjoyed traversing Rattlesnake Mountain from NW to SE. This was part of the Mountaineers' Conditioning for Hiking Series (CHS-2) class; our average pace for the morning was 2.4 mph.  One of the most surprising aspects of this trail was the number of "turnstiles" that keep horses/mountain bikes off the hiking trails. Love that!

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We saw one mountain biker starting at the same time we did (7:40 a.m.), and a pair of hikers followed us up and turned around at the Grand Prospect, then another single hiker and a trail runner stopped at East Peak, but almost 95% of the hikers on this mountain stick to the lowest Rattlesnake Ledge. In my opinion the best view is at the third ledge. Definitely worth going higher than where most people stop.

We enjoyed 23 bird species on the morning including all 4 thrushes, Pacific wrens, 45-50 Canada geese at the lake, and at a 2.4 mph average pace, we were even ablt to stop for a few photos of the views toward Si, Little Si and Teneriffe, and south to Mt. Rainier and beyond. We also saw daisies, fireweed, foxgloves, tiger lilies, and bleeding hearts in bloom. So pretty.

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To get 12 miles and 3000' elevation gain we added a stroll around a portion of the lake and found the ONLY running water (oh my, so nice to dip a neckerchief or hat in that stream!) on the east side, plus nice views of the steep ledges we'd just hiked. There are NO running streams or creeks anywhere on Rattlesnake right now (July 8) so bring at least 3 liters if you're doing the traverse.

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A lovely surprise -- I won't simply drive past in the future! Now that I've been there, it's quite an impressive stretch to walk along.