Every third or fourth trip out to Washington, I manage to get in a hike. This one was with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
annikusrex and two of our other high school friends, M&M. M had been wanting to hike Rattlesnake Mountain for a while as a through-hike, but found it tricky to orchestrate things to have vehicles at either end of the 10.2-mile trail. Well, AKW's dad's car to the rescue! Once we finally figured out that we were waiting for each other at the other trailhead and got ourselves sorted out, we enjoyed this absolutely wonderful hike, and we didn't even have to call in Search and Rescue to haul us out (sarcasm font! joke!).
There are so many amazing views on this hike, and it was an almost perfectly clear day, so we got to see almost all of them, including a distant view of Mt. Baker. I'd been to the Cedar River Watershed Education Center before, and LOVE the rain drums there, but I'd never before gotten to see the entire watershed valley from the Rattlesnake Ledges.
I took some photos, but I'm woefully behind on going through them and uploading them, plus we put AKW in charge of most photography, so hopefully I'll have them ready to share soon.
I was especially glad for the direction we took on the hike. A lot of people will park at Rattlesnake Lake and then just hike the 2 miles and 1000 feet up to the Ledges, which provide fantastic lookouts. Coming from Snoqualmie Point Park did indeed provide a splendid progression of views, and I was grateful that it was only the last 2 miles of trail down from the Ledges that were at a relentless downhill grade on dusty, rocky trail.
We even managed to find some mountain huckleberries to snack on, plus some blackcap raspberries, too. Not enough to pick, but enough to savor the fruits of summer. Animal highlights included tons of teeny frogs, a snake, squirrels gnawing on sparkly green and black fir cones, and a grouse.
We also did a ton of catching up with each other, and even got to cap off the ride with beer and burritos in North Fork. No cherry pie for us, however, so clearly we'll just have to go back again sometime soon.
annikusrex and two of our other high school friends, M&M. M had been wanting to hike Rattlesnake Mountain for a while as a through-hike, but found it tricky to orchestrate things to have vehicles at either end of the 10.2-mile trail. Well, AKW's dad's car to the rescue! Once we finally figured out that we were waiting for each other at the other trailhead and got ourselves sorted out, we enjoyed this absolutely wonderful hike, and we didn't even have to call in Search and Rescue to haul us out (sarcasm font! joke!).There are so many amazing views on this hike, and it was an almost perfectly clear day, so we got to see almost all of them, including a distant view of Mt. Baker. I'd been to the Cedar River Watershed Education Center before, and LOVE the rain drums there, but I'd never before gotten to see the entire watershed valley from the Rattlesnake Ledges.
I took some photos, but I'm woefully behind on going through them and uploading them, plus we put AKW in charge of most photography, so hopefully I'll have them ready to share soon.
I was especially glad for the direction we took on the hike. A lot of people will park at Rattlesnake Lake and then just hike the 2 miles and 1000 feet up to the Ledges, which provide fantastic lookouts. Coming from Snoqualmie Point Park did indeed provide a splendid progression of views, and I was grateful that it was only the last 2 miles of trail down from the Ledges that were at a relentless downhill grade on dusty, rocky trail.
We even managed to find some mountain huckleberries to snack on, plus some blackcap raspberries, too. Not enough to pick, but enough to savor the fruits of summer. Animal highlights included tons of teeny frogs, a snake, squirrels gnawing on sparkly green and black fir cones, and a grouse.
We also did a ton of catching up with each other, and even got to cap off the ride with beer and burritos in North Fork. No cherry pie for us, however, so clearly we'll just have to go back again sometime soon.
