Where do you take your sweetie who has the following criteria for a trip: 1) must be spectacular, 2) must have rock and 3) must be forgiving since it's his first hike of the season. We both decided that High Rock would meet these criterium. My concern was the road condition since an earlier report stated that the south road was particularly nasty. I didn't know if the approach we were taking was the south one, since both looked south to me on the map. Well, I must have taken the north road since the road condition was great (with a few potholes). We just followed the signs to High Rock from Road 52 instead of what our book told us.

We were the first to arrive at the trailhead but soon a young couple pulled up and started up the trail. The trail is a steady up through young beargrass, triliums, paintbrush and avalanche lillies. The skies stayed patchy sun/cloud through our slog up the trail but it kept us nice and cool. We finally reached the lookout where the younger couple thought we had turned around since we took so long to hike up there. The young man told us that the shed up at the lookout was from the days when they brought up supplies by mule. The shed was where they housed the mules. He also told us that you can stay in the shed for a night (with permission). That's a nice to know and probably wouldn't have ever known if we hadn't ran into this couple. We parted ways. Dave and I got up to the lookout (for which I must say scared me since I am sooooooo afraid of heights). Someone had broken into the lookout so there is broken glass at the door. So be careful. There we had lunch looking for Mt. Rainier but never seeing it. The views changed every minute or so with the clouds forming then disappearing through out our lunch. After lunch we headed down as mean several parties heading up. Good day of hiking. My only regret is that my camera's battery died up at the look out. No pictures.

Since September is simply too precious to fritter away sitting at home these dreary weekends, I endeavored to explore some S. Cascade destinations on my list for some time.

The High Rock trail is a straightforward ridge-ramble to a precipitous viewpoint that feels like front-row seating to the Tahoma show. The pleasant tread steadily climbs, with the last hundred feet being on angled rock.

During my stay at the summit it snowed almost constantly with slight accumulation. This made walking around on the rock hazardous. By 1:30a patchy stars were showing throw blowing fog. The lights of Centralia and Chehalis were visible to the west. Clearing in the morning fostered views of Tahoma, Adams, sundry clearcuts; the ceiling once again dropped by 9a. I was out of there by 9:30 to continue explorations at Burley Mountain.

This is my second trip to High Rock this spring, with success this time. The north approach roads, FS-84 and FS-8440, are snow free to Towhead Gap. The majority of the roads are in good shape, although no road work has been done yet and there are some very large potholes and downed trees to go around. Pick your mode of transportation accordingly. The trail is snow free and in good condition; only one blow down on the trail. The lookout is not open. The first part of the trail is through a field of Bear Grass in full bloom. The sweet fragrance was so strong that I could smell it even with a bad cold.

Picture #1: High rock and Mt Rainier. Picture #2: Looking down the slab at the shelter.

With most of the snow rapidly melting in the mountains this year, I decided to go to High Rock about a month earlier than normal. The north approach roads, FS-84 and FS-8440, still have about one foot of snow on it above 3800 feet, which is about a mile from Towhead Gap. Towhead is completely melted out. The south road approach appears to be melted out. There were fresh bike track at the Gap which came up the south approach roads, FS-85 and FS-8440. If you try the south approach, I recommend a high clearance, 4WD vehicle, based upon my previous experience on this road last June..

The first mile of the trail is 95% snow free and in good condition; only one blow down on the trail. I had to turn around about half a mile from the top because of the steep hard snow. If I had brought an ice axe and crampons, I think the summit would have been possible. There were very old tracks in the snow, so someone has been up here this spring. Give this one a few more weeks before you try it. Also, the north road, at 4100 feet, has two large blow downs on the road which have to be remove after the melt out.