Mount Si

Mount Si.

by Sam

It's Spring Break! Which means vacation time with the family. This year we visited some of my wife's friends in Seattle, WA. Luckily, when everyone was asleep in the hotel, I was able to sneak away to climb a mountain. Mount Si is located on the western edge of the Cascade Mountain Range about 35 min. east of Seattle. It is the remnant of an oceanic plate volcano and towers above the valley floor. It is extremely popular so I was lucky to hit it on an early Monday morning and only saw a handful of people. It also requires a Discover Pass to park. A fact I didn't know until I parked my car at 6:00 a.m. Many signs around the parking lot showed instructions on how to buy one online so I could print it off and display it on my dashboard. Um...ok, yeah, let me just print that off in my printer that I stow in my car... I decided that my chances of getting caught without a pass on a Monday morning were slim. Also, I knew I'd be down before 9:00 a.m. so, I doubted anyone would be checkin' before I left. And I got lucky, no ticket for me.

The trail is absolutely gorgeous, covered in ferns, evergreens, and lots of other cool green stuff, particularly moss, which we don't get much of in Utah. The trail has a nice gradual ascent with many switchbacks, making it for the majority of the time, highly runnable. Most of my Seattle trip was wet and cold. I expected more mud, but didn't get much. The temperature was a nice 38 degrees when I started, perfect for running uphill. I only needed my headlamp for about 20 mins. then the sunrise started filtering in through the thick forest canopy. There were almost no spots on the trail that allowed a view of the landscape beyond the immediate trees. It wasn't until I arrived at the base of the Haystack, the rock peak at the top, that the trees parted to allow a view. And it didn't disappoint.

The behemoth Mount Rainier in the background.

The Haystack.

Right there towering above the tiny mountains that surround it stood Mount Rainier beckoning me to gaze at it's loftiness in wonder and awe. The wind picked up on the exposed mountain top and I was glad to have brought my jacket. Snow and ice covered the trail. I didn't think I would need extra traction since these mountains only scrape 4,000'. After all, I live at that elevation in Utah and currently traction isn't required until about 7,000'. However, the climate is apparently quite different. As I rounded the Haystack to start the scramble it quickly became obvious that I wasn't going to summit without traction or an ice axe. I pushed on nonetheless, hoping to have some well carved out steps in the snow by previous climbers. 

Almost summit monkey.

There were, for a short time, then it became extremely slick and precarious. The scramble was very similar to the Mount Olympus scramble. I had made it about 1/3 of the way up and at this point I stopped to collect my thoughts and make a decision. I could push on and bag the peak then risk a slip on the way down and plummet to my doom, or I could turn around now and still risk plummeting to my doom and maybe make it home to my wife and kids. I love bagging peaks and sometimes it's a fever that I can't shake, but I also love my wife and kids and after a minute or two of freezing wind and cold hands grasping at snow and rock, I decided to turn around. Chances are I'll never be back and won't summit the Haystack, but that's ok, there are plenty of other mountains around.

The way down was quick and enjoyable. I stopped to take too many pictures. When I came out at the bottom lo and behold there were three LDS missionaries just starting out. What are the chances or running in to Mormons? They saw me running and asked what time I had started. As most people react they did too, amazed at the quick time. We chatted about trail-running and such for a moment. I asked them where they were from and then smiled and told them I was from the Salt Lake Valley. Another Elder came out of the restroom complaining about there not being hand sanitizer. I smiled and almost laughed out loud at him, wondering why he would expect hand sanitizer in an outhouse. Consider yourself lucky to have a toilet at all, I thought.

Map and Stats of the Mount Si trail.

As a side note I was also able to do some road-running near the hotel. I set some high strava records and caught a beautiful sunrise on Juanita Bay.