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Trip Report    

Day Hike - Mount Washington (Snoqualmie)

Three of us got an early start (7:40) for a lovely hike to the summit where gray jays looked on with great interest as we snacked. We were too early for a view, but we still had a lovely day.

  • Road suitable for all vehicles
  • Based on a trip report from a week ago, we had a pretty good idea about what we'd face with snow conditions. There is NOT a lot of snow (snowshoes would be total overkill right now) but what there is can get a bit icy in spots. The recent 1/2 inch of dusting made going up totally fine, but on the way down, we chose to put on our microspikes. Most of the route is clear; we could see where trees have been sawed through. We did find two recent trees over the trail but very manageable.

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    The portapotty is open, though marked with graffiti. Only one other car was in the parking lot when we arrived, 9 when we returned around 12:40. We hung out with 3-5 gray jays on the north side of the summit then backtracked to the south side, waiting for a view we were too early to get. It cleared on our descent. The advantage to going so early is having a half day to do other things.

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Driving at 6:30 a.m. on a Friday meant zero downtown traffic issues. Discover Pass is required. We saw 6 bird species on the day: robin, juncos, chickadee, varied thrush, golden-crowned kinglets, and several gray jays interested in rustling bags and which dive-bombed my friend. The weather was perfect, in the upper 30's, and on the way down we had blue skies.

Our trip was roughly 8.2 miles and 3200' gain-ish. I didn't set an AllTrails track as I don't find it accurate. Our round trip was 4:23 moving time with 30 minutes enjoying the summits. All told we saw 11 people and 3-4 dogs.

Great conversation, nice weather, and lovely to get out.

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