- Aug 30, 2001
- 13,483
- 88
- 48
Mt. Si is probably the most popular hike in all of Washington State. It's constantly jam packed with people every day of the week and especially weekends when it's not raining. We were not planning to hike Mt. Si or be anywhere in it's vicinity on this day. Our original plan was to hike this easy, long and flat trail to a place called Otter Falls, a big huge granite rock face with with the Taylor River rushing over it. However, nature gave us the big middle finger when we discovered a washout 5 miles into a 12 mile drive on a pot-hole filled gravel road. We had to turn around.
So we decided to shred up Little Si, which is a shorter trail to a different part of Mt. Si. Unfortuantely it's also a popular trail so it wasn't as serene and desolate as we were hoping for. But luckily, there are plenty of off shoot trails that don't appeal to most other hikers. The reason they don't appeal to most is because THEY'RE COMPLETELY TREACHEROUS AND HARD AS SHIT TO HIKE!!!
Now, I have no problem with steep, difficult hikes, but they take a certain amount of mental preparation in order to accomplish. At least for me, that's how it seems. So, I wasn't quite ready for it, but of course once we started hoofin' it up and my legs realized I wasn't going to quit and they better stop being little pussies, it was all good.
We went up the Little Si trail for about a mile. It's STEEP. I felt like a mountain goat climbing up these rocks. Eventually we came to the "Old Mt. Si" trail. It's even steeper than Little Si. We hoofed that shit for about a mile and then found a huge dry rock to sit under and eliminate the weight that our beers were keeping in our backpacks (aka we drank under the rock). It was raining pretty good this whole time so I kept my camera in it's pack nice and dry. After that short break we continued on.
This is basically what most of the hike was like. Trees and big rocks everywhere. Very cool.
Erling decided to climb some shit. I took some pics and then followed.
We got up into that rock quite a bit. They wanted to climb up even further, there was a big ledge not far away they wanted to get to. I didn't want to attempt this with my camera hanging around my neck, so I opted hang back and take pics instead. Look at that angle Nick is hoofin' right there! And look how funny it is that Erling's unknowingly pointing at his ass!
If you look real close, you can see them both up there in the middle of the pic.
The water on these ferns looked much cooler in person.
After about another 3 miles and 2500 feet, we reached snow. It wasn't on the ground much, but it was definitely falling from the sky through the trees. We'd been doing some serious trekking through woods that weren't the trail, so again my camera was packed away and I got no pics of the snow. We stopped at a switchback and busted out the stoves and called it lunch time. They ate Mountain House dehydrated meals, I mauled through a huge chicken and havarti sammich I'd packed along. That revamped us and we decided we'd had enough climbing. It was getting late, so we came back down and took the Boulder Garden loop trail on the way out. Check this shit out!
Hell yeah we climbed up that shit!!!!
After a mile or so coming down the super steep Boulder Garden trail (glad we were going down this time!) we saw what appeared to be a small possible lookout point off in the distance. We found a trail leading towards and were very stoked to happen across this little surprise.
That's Rattlesnake Ledge off in the distance, the straight sheer drop off. It's another popular mountain destination here.
I approve.
See all that white stuff on the moss near where I'm standing? Some bird got wrecked fierce up there recently. We didn't find a carcass anywhere but there were feathers all over the entire place.
All in all, a very fun, impromptu hike with awesome unexpected results. Our next hike will be the very same trail next weekend, because we realized once we'd gotten to the parking lot that we forgot to stop and pick up the beer bottles we'd left under that rock on the way back down. We'd totally intended too, but we decided to take that Boulder Garden trail on the way back down, detouring us away from the bottles. Next week, we'll go back and get them and actually make it all the way to the top of Mt. Si this time.
edit: Oh yeah, also this:
So we decided to shred up Little Si, which is a shorter trail to a different part of Mt. Si. Unfortuantely it's also a popular trail so it wasn't as serene and desolate as we were hoping for. But luckily, there are plenty of off shoot trails that don't appeal to most other hikers. The reason they don't appeal to most is because THEY'RE COMPLETELY TREACHEROUS AND HARD AS SHIT TO HIKE!!!
Now, I have no problem with steep, difficult hikes, but they take a certain amount of mental preparation in order to accomplish. At least for me, that's how it seems. So, I wasn't quite ready for it, but of course once we started hoofin' it up and my legs realized I wasn't going to quit and they better stop being little pussies, it was all good.
We went up the Little Si trail for about a mile. It's STEEP. I felt like a mountain goat climbing up these rocks. Eventually we came to the "Old Mt. Si" trail. It's even steeper than Little Si. We hoofed that shit for about a mile and then found a huge dry rock to sit under and eliminate the weight that our beers were keeping in our backpacks (aka we drank under the rock). It was raining pretty good this whole time so I kept my camera in it's pack nice and dry. After that short break we continued on.
This is basically what most of the hike was like. Trees and big rocks everywhere. Very cool.
Erling decided to climb some shit. I took some pics and then followed.
We got up into that rock quite a bit. They wanted to climb up even further, there was a big ledge not far away they wanted to get to. I didn't want to attempt this with my camera hanging around my neck, so I opted hang back and take pics instead. Look at that angle Nick is hoofin' right there! And look how funny it is that Erling's unknowingly pointing at his ass!
If you look real close, you can see them both up there in the middle of the pic.
The water on these ferns looked much cooler in person.
After about another 3 miles and 2500 feet, we reached snow. It wasn't on the ground much, but it was definitely falling from the sky through the trees. We'd been doing some serious trekking through woods that weren't the trail, so again my camera was packed away and I got no pics of the snow. We stopped at a switchback and busted out the stoves and called it lunch time. They ate Mountain House dehydrated meals, I mauled through a huge chicken and havarti sammich I'd packed along. That revamped us and we decided we'd had enough climbing. It was getting late, so we came back down and took the Boulder Garden loop trail on the way out. Check this shit out!
Hell yeah we climbed up that shit!!!!
After a mile or so coming down the super steep Boulder Garden trail (glad we were going down this time!) we saw what appeared to be a small possible lookout point off in the distance. We found a trail leading towards and were very stoked to happen across this little surprise.
That's Rattlesnake Ledge off in the distance, the straight sheer drop off. It's another popular mountain destination here.
I approve.
See all that white stuff on the moss near where I'm standing? Some bird got wrecked fierce up there recently. We didn't find a carcass anywhere but there were feathers all over the entire place.
All in all, a very fun, impromptu hike with awesome unexpected results. Our next hike will be the very same trail next weekend, because we realized once we'd gotten to the parking lot that we forgot to stop and pick up the beer bottles we'd left under that rock on the way back down. We'd totally intended too, but we decided to take that Boulder Garden trail on the way back down, detouring us away from the bottles. Next week, we'll go back and get them and actually make it all the way to the top of Mt. Si this time.
edit: Oh yeah, also this:
Epic!!! You should've put on some corpse paint and tried to re-enact Immortal's "Call of the Wintermoon" vid.
That would be pretty sweet.
