Snoqualmie Mountain
Distance (mi)
Vertical (ft)
Photo Gallery
4.0
3,150'
Year Total
28.7
14,760'
Year Goal
200.0
75,000'
June 2 - Jakub and I started up from the Alpental parking lot around 8:30am under bluebird skies and balmy temperatures in the 60's. This trail is steep, virtually unmaintained and, in early season, largely snow covered. In other words, my kind of hike! I've been up here twice before, but both times later in the summer, and have always wanted to do it as a snow climb. About halfway up there is an exposed creek crossing on a waterfall ledge that we were a bit worried might require creative circumvention if it was snow-covered and too dangerous to cross, but fortunately we found it to be entirely snow-free. Soon thereafter most of the route up the ridge was on moderately steep snow with ever-widening views. This was the first hike of the season for Jakub so we took our time going up - about 3.5 hours to the summit. This is the highest peak in the immediate Snoqualmie Pass area (though Chair Peak and Kaleetan are basically the same height) with fantastic 360-degree views from the top. A nice change from Monday's hike in the clouds. The weather stayed stable and, in fact, with the June sun beating down on the south-facing snow-covered slopes, it was positively baking hot.
We hung out at the top for about half an hour and then headed back down. The snow was the perfect consistency for plunge-stepping/glissading so we made good time on the way down; 1.75 hours all told. On the drive back we made a requisite stop at XXX Burger in Issaquah for ridiculously large portions of greasy food and milkshakes.
Snoqualmie Mountain actually has a couple of prominences that could be rightfully called "the" summit... here is part of our attempt at some GPS-assisted layman's surveying to settle our disagreement as to which one is actually highest:
Click to view(in other news, YouTube has apparently finally figured out how to correctly sync the audio to the video from my camera!)