Trip Reports

Beautiful day, warm and sunny, got to the trail-head at about 12:30pm and hiked the first mile or so before we hit snow. We continued on the snow in our hiking boots for about half a mile, the snow was packed down and melting, making it pretty easy to hike on. We decided to turn back at this point and enjoy the snow-less part of the trail. We ran into 3 other hikers.

Outstanding day for a hike. The first mile is a minefield of horse poop. The river beckons in the distance, but you never really get close to it until the end. A few mud puddles here and there and a couple of blowdowns to navigate. This hike is for Grandma and the kids on a Sunday afternoon. Many more hikers on the way back and lots of happy dogs! Took a few photos but nothing worth posting.

Trail is in perfect shape. Great hike with my 4-year old son. Came across a few shady spots to rest in the 85-90 deg. heat. Encountered beautiful wildflowers, butterflies, and a rattlesnake hiding in the rocks.

The road to the trailhead was clear of snow and in good repair. As of Mid-May the snow began about 1/4 mile into the trail, but wasn't continuous until about 1-1.5 miles in. We hiked just in boots to the shelter, where the snow was about 5ft deep, but it was solid and not too difficult to walk in in the morning. After the bridge it got fairly difficult so we put on snowshoes and that helped, but the trail was buried under all the snow and we couldn't find the route so we turned back after about a half-hour. The snow shoes were not essential but definitely helped; by afternoon especially when the snow began to soften. I'd guess the snow is gonna be around for at least another month, at least above the shelter.

Beautiful day! Got about 1.5 mi and were told by other hikers that two bears were up ahead before the lookout, and weren't moving off the trail. We had our dog with us, so decided to turn back. Trail was in great shape.

I parked at the Talapus Lake Trailhead and started in at about 12:30pm Monday. The trail was covered in snow before I got to Talapus Lake. From there on it was deep snow to the summit of Pratt Mtn, which I reached at about 3:45pm.
There was no avalanche danger, but there were cornices on the ridge but they were easily avoided. There is one "Bad Step" on the ridge where rock slabs reach the ridge crest. You have to skirt them to the climber's right, it's not exposed but the snow next to the rocks is (as is common) quite rotten so you must place your feet with care. Other than that, a great quick trip to some great views of the Snoq Pass Peaks, plus I could see Mt. Stuart in the distance. I left the summit at 4pm and was back at the car at 5:15pm. Highly recommended, but don't wait till the snow is gone, I suspect the ridge would be annoyingly brushy.

Beautiful hike on a slighly hidden trail. The hardest part of this hike was finding the trailhead. NOTE...This trail is not for beginner hikers.

To find the trailhead, drive HWY 2 to Index by making a left on Index-Galena Rd and cross the bridge into the town. Head left on Index Ave (road bends to the left) and make a right on to Avenue A. Drive for approx 1/2 mile until you find a gravel parking lot just in front of the railroad tracks. Park your car and walk over the tracks, and begin to head right down the trail that follows the train tracks. In about 200 yards there will be an old logging style road on your left, head up that road. You know you are in the right place when you see the white doors on a tunnel heading into the mountains. Walk past the picnic table and head to your right and towards the woods, you should find the trail easily and you may pass some climbers attempting to climb the wall.

As i mentioned, this trail is not for beginners...it gets right to the point and starts to head up. The trail is thin, steep and some scrambling needs to take place in a few areas. There is also a small "washout" area about midway up the trail. At the first "Y" make a right, at the second "Y" make a left. There are a series of switchbacks, natural staircases to climb and amazing views to see. Almost to the top you come to a state park boundary, head right for the best views. There is a ledge about 3 minutes from there. Careful of the ledge and don't toss anything over, there may be climbers below.

Views are amazing and include several mountains, rivers and the town of Index below.

All in all, this was a beautiful hike. The ledge makes a perfect place for lunch. The trail took about an hour to hike up and about 35 to hike down. Estimates of altitude from google earth are about 1350 foot elevation gain and about 2.75 miles roundtrip.

Hit McDonald Mt trailhead at corner of 346th Ave & Kent Kangley at 8:20 AM. My car only one at trailhead. Previous write-ups from Hiker Jim & Type E were useful. Blue gate at start of old road. First mile of this trail/road is rutted & bermed and a bit rough going. There are several forks, stick w/ upward grade. At one of the switchbacks the trail turns into a much smoother road. Most of the early walking is through light forest. At a little over 2 miles the first clearcut area is reached. A few views of peaks (Baker, Glacier, Rattlesnake ledge, Teneriffe, Olympics, etc) in distance. First view also of radio tower up on McDonald Mt (although not the summit). Another fork, go left toward McDonald Mt. After about 0.5 mile the road again enters forest. Another blue gate soon after, this one was open. Few peek-a-boo views to the west. Rock quarry attained at a little over 3 miles. Another fork, take road to right w/blue gate, road to left has yellow gate w/ warning signs from Tacoma Water. Road switchbacks up & soon a short spur to right leads to radio tower. Back at fork, road to left becomes grassy & a bit overgrown. Road descends slightly to slash pile w/ cables lying around. Continue on descending until the road again heads up. Small trees in road a bit of a nuisance. Eventually appears that road ends. Go straight thru some small evergreens a very short distance & you are in the forest. A rough boot path may be followed, but as long as you continue heading south you'll reach another clear cut. Picked up road again and headed toward 4 slash piles. Best views of Mt Rainier here. Followed road to left and a large amount of logs & slash block the way toward a main road to the east. Climbed over barrier & followed that road again up & southward. Many boundary type signs for hunting & right-of-way posted on trees along road. Continued to follow road up until near true (southern) summit of Mt McDonald. I would recommend leaving the main road & taking a smaller road to the right that is on the west side of the ridge. Also blocked w/ logs/trees, climb over & proceed. When crest reached, leave road & go to left. Go thru forest until high point found. It appeared that some rocks were placed around the summit area. No views there. After short rest I decided to head back to clearcut to have lunch in full view of Mt Rainier. Absolutely gorgeous, bluebird day. I retraced my route back. I believe there are probably easier routes that follow more of the road but I did not explore further. Returned to car by about 1:30 PM. Time up about 3 hours +, time back about 2 hours (w/ breaks). Last mile w/ all the washouts, berms etc was harder coming down. Be careful not to slip & fall. I had a few hoplas (slips) but no falls. I'd recommend taking hiking poles on this trip. Route snow-free at this time. Nobody else seen. This is probably a good hike for solitude close in. I doubt it's much busier on weekends.

Gary, John, and I planned a snow scramble of Navaho Peak. Unfortunately, the Stafford Road was closed 2 1/2 miles before the trailhead and avalanche danger was extremely high for the weekend. A last minute change was needed. We chose a snow free hike with lots of mileage. Gary and I had done the loop around Wallace Falls and Lake but John had not. I have been to Jay Lake several times. We decided to add that second lake. Since this would be a near 80 degree day the crowds were assured. We chose an early start. We arrived at Wallace Falls State Park around 8:00 am to find a number of cars already there. A few minutes later we were on our way.

I chose to do a figure eight loop. We headed up the old railroad grade. It was sunny and warming fast. Long sleeves and long pants legs did not last long. Just before the Greg Ball Trail we headed down to meet the Woody Trail. We crossed the North Fork of the Wallace River then it was all uphill. A stop at the shelter for photos of the lower falls then back on our way. The sun was awful for photos of the falls but our early visit meant there were no crowds. We saw just a few people. From the middle falls viewpoint we could see a rainbow in the spray below us. After a short break for more photos at the upper falls viewpoint we headed up to the old road above us.

The first half of the route from the viewpoint is barely a boot path. It amazes me that the upper part is built trail while the lower part is hard to find. With 90% of the elevation gain to Wallace Lake out of the way the next 2.3 miles to the lake is an easy walk. When the logging road in the middle was built it was a stark cut. Now brush and trees are growing along the side and it looks much better. At a few boggy spots we found skunk cabbage in bloom. There are still trillium, yellow violets, and bleeding hearts blooming around the loop too. We continued past the Wallace Lake outlet and headed to the other end of the lake. I often hike here in the winter and am slogging in snow around the lake more often than not. It is long gone now.

I expected the inlet creek would be raging but much to my surprise it was dry. We had an easy time walking the creek bed to Pebble Beach. The lake level is high and there are no pebbles showing at this time. We did enjoy a long early lunch here with views down the lake and to a snow covered peak in the distance. A check of the map suggested it was Mt. Index. I pulled out my GPS to find that the map was gone. In fact the screen was frozen. I could turn it off and tried to restart it. That did not work. I took out the batteries and waited. Still not working when I turned it back on. I was afraid it was toast when John suggested taking out the memory card. That did the trick. It was working again. Unfortunately, we now did not have the map. This proved to be a problem a little later.

Not ready to turn back after "only" 6 3/4 miles we headed on to Jay Lake. Crossing the inlet creek can be wet in high water but the parks people have placed big round plastic pots filled with rocks across the creek bed. Not needed this day there are times in the spring they will prove useful. On my first visit to Jay Lake in 1994 we headed up the creek bed and beat brush on the left side of the creek. On my second visit in 2002 I found the old road that makes the walk very easy. The sign says 1 mile to Jay Lake. My GPS says .80 miles. Jay Lake now has a new outhouse, four tent sites, a picnic table chained to a tree, and a bucket on a rope to hang food. A big sign says "Camping Here Allowed By Permit Only". Check with the state park if you want to camp.

Any sensible people would have turned around here. We are not sensible people. We pulled out the paper map and checked the distance to Shaw Lake. I have been aware of Shaw Lake since my first visit to Jay. I was not sure if there was any trail or just how far the old road we took from Wallace Lake would go. Turning around here would give us a 14 mile day. We chose to take a stab at Shaw. It is a little more than a mile from Jay as the crow flies. Trails are rarely that straight.

The good news was that while the old road quickly became filled with salmonberries and assorted sticky brush there was a path carved through it. In short order we reached the creek between Jay and Shaw Lakes. Not too hard to get across with dry feet. On the other side the terrain headed for the sky. Straight up a very steep hillside. We found bits of plastic tape headed up. Off we went. While there is precious little trail or boot path on the climb there is enough tape to keep you heading in the right direction. This is absolutely not a "trail". It is a scrambly route. After about 350' of steep climbing we reached a ridge top. From here the route is a series of paths, road sections, and bushwhacking. Trees have fallen across what might have been easy walking at an earlier time. Again, there is enough plastic tape to never be totally out of sight of the next objective.

We descended a ways to find a lake! Shaw Lake? An old road went around the left side of the lake. We were surprised to find the outlet on this side dropping down to Highway 2 not at the end dropping to Jay Lake. A red flag. With a map on my GPS it would have been easy to pinpoint us and Shaw Lake. We could have taken coordinates from the GPS and plotted them on the paper map. Instead we guessed our route from the terrain and figured that we were at Shaw Lake. We were wrong. When I returned home and downloaded the GPS track it was clear we were at a smaller lake that was not on the paper map. Live and learn. If the road continued in good shape we were about 10 minutes from Shaw lake. Less than half a flat mile.

Our trip back to Jay Lake was much easier as we now knew where the route was. The route was well designed as it follows a narrow ridge top at one point with near vertical drops on both sides. It also crosses a steep slope where the very narrow tread is just enough to safely cross. Back at Jay Lake John and I compared scrapes and cuts. Gary did the bushwhacking route in long pants. An easy .80 miles brought us back to Wallace Lake. We took another long break at Pebble Beach. The sun had moved quite a ways since our earlier stop and there was far less glare. Much better photos. We saw a couple folks rafting on the lake. Not a bad way to spend the warmest day of the year so far.

So much of this route is in forest that we never did put on sunscreen. It made for a fairly cool hike. We headed back around Wallace Lake and down to the newer logging road. A short way down that is the Greg Ball Trail. That made for a nice gentle route back down. I was surprised to see several groups at Wallace Lake and coming up to the lake in the later afternoon. Nothing like the mob at the falls but more than I used to see. Back at the railroad grade we took the connector for the second time this day down to the Woody Trail. This time we turned right and followed the Woody Trail on down. As expected there were many people on this trail going up and down. It slowed us down a bit but soon we were back at the trailhead. It was just before 5:00 pm.

The GPS showed we hiked 16.9 miles with 2900' of gain. Almost 1000' came after we reached Wallace Lake. The day proved to be much more interesting than I expected. We did not set out to reach Shaw Lake and we did not do it but came very close. Now we will have to go back for the final third of a mile. It was a very pleasant spring day in a very crowded place where we avoided most of the people until the last mile and a half. A really fun hike. As expected the parking lot was nearly full. I'm sure it was full an hour earlier. Driving out we counted cars parked along the road. An even 50. Added to the parking lot there were at least 100 cars there. Amazing but understandable on a beautiful spring day.

I have posted 36 annotated photos on my website located at: http://www.hikingnorthwest.com. Go to "Trips - 2012" on the left margin.

  The Baker River Trail begins at the end of the Baker Lake Road at the north end of Baker Lake about 26 miles from Highway 20. Only the last few miles of road is gravel and it is in very good condition.
  I had hiked the Baker Lake Trail before so after 1/2 mile when the bridge appeared I continued northward on trail #606 (Baker River Trail) rather than cross the bridge over to the east side of the lake.
  The trail is a beautiful walk, mostly with the river in view, as well as a few looks at snow capped peaks. For the most part the trail was dry and in good shape and I followed it for several miles before turning back.
  The usual Monday crowd was out. I saw no one the entire hike!