We started our hike at 9:30am, cloudy skies with some chill in the air. Trail is in absolute perfect condition. Trail is mainly wide and cushey making it easy on the feet. Switchbacks are long and lazy making for an easy ascent. Since we had packed light and trail conditions were ideal we ran most of the way to Owyhigh Lakes where we stopped for water/snack. Fall colors of deep red, browns and yellows were prolific.

We continued past Owyhigh Lakes. The trail is still nice but not as wide. Bushes and grasses encroached onto the trail. This caused the dew to seep into the tops of my boots. Eventually, my socks and feet became drenched. Gators or rainpants would have been nice. We continued hiking until we hit the 9 mile mark and the junction with the Eastside Trail. The entire day on the trail we never saw another person. This is a very secluded hike. We continued on the Eastside Trail up to Cayuse Pass. This was 3 more miles and the trail became quite a bit steeper.

Earlier we had hidden our bikes at Cayuse Pass in order make a hike/bike loop out of the day. I personally enjoy loop hikes more than out and back hikes. This is an excellent hike/bike loop. Sommar and I, did the downhill bike ride with ease. However, the last two miles back to the car was a leg burner!

I believe the road to White River will close for the season on Nov. 1st. All totaled this loop consisted of a 12 mile hike, 3200ft. elev. gain and a 7 mile bike ride. 5 hours car to car.

Just about anyone and everyone can get from the Sunrise Road to the Tamanos Creek Campground (or at least to the bridge just before the campground). Very uneventful portion of the trail, pretty but uneventful. This was the 4th day of our groups 5 day trip which began at the Carbon River Ranger Station (open) following the Wonderland Trail until jumping over onto the Owyhigh Lakes Trail and finally hiking a section of the Eastside Trail ending at the Ohanapecosh Ranger Station (closed). This was by far my favorite day of the trip. The funs begins after the Tamanos Creek Campground. The next 3.5 miles passing the Owyhigh Lakes and continuing on toward Deer Creek Campground has 90% snow cover with very few traces of the actual trail. As we left the White River Campground that morning the ranger told us that we would have to route find over an area where an avalanche had taken out the trail. What an understatement. Obviously not many people if any had been through the area. We encountered no less than 7 different avalanche areas which completely covered the trail, still under 4-8ft of snow, with 'mountains' of debris. A Map and Compass are useful if unfamiliar with the surrounding topography or traveling in poor conditions. However, between the ridge lines and the main SE flowing creek to follow, the general pathway from the pass at the South end of the Owyhigh Lakes to where the trail picks up again 2 miles from Deer Creek is quite obvious even without a trail to follow. The highlight of the day came as we crossed the first avalanche area into the meadow above the Owyhigh Lakes. As we entered a small undamaged section of trees we were startled by a fairly large black bear rooting about in the meadow about 50-75 yards away, positioned between the lake and the trail. We noticed the bear a few moments before he sensed that we were there. Half of our group was approx. 5 minutes behind and as they approached the bear promptly stood up on it's hind legs and began to weave back and forth looking around the trees. I sensed a great deal of intelligence in the way the bear acted. As soon as the other half on the group came into the bear's view he immediately dropped back down to all four and began looking for more things to snack on. We were of no interest to him at all. Even so, we decided to increase the distance between our party and the bear before we stopped to take pictures and gawk (easy with a good pair of binoculars). The bear was quite large for a black bear and had still not shed the excess fur from winter even though it was now the 28th of July. We eventually moved on and left the bear in the meadow. After passing the lakes it was pretty much all downhill from there. We kept to the east side of the creek, traversing through snow buried trees and glissading down snow fields. This was very fun for many in the group that had never experienced any level of true route finding or navigation. Those in the group that had been quite tired after 3 days of hiking found renewed energies. We avoided several snow bridges that were quite unsafe. We regained the trail and passed several wonderful little waterfalls before coming to the Boundary Creek Crossing. There is a large volume of water flowing very swiftly at the crossing and the original log crossing has been broken. The original log is still spanning 90% of the creek. The NPS has a new log in place but it has not been scored and cut. It is not recommend to cross here. Possibly because we were not thinking very clearly from the euphoria of our hike to that point, most of the group crossed on the old broken log and I crossed on the newly placed uncut log. Looking back we probably should have gone upstream to find a safer crossing but based on the flow of the river that may have been quite a distance upstream. The views of the creeks converging in this area culminating in spectacular waterfalls were amazing. We continued on to the Deer Creek Campground making a brief side trip of 0.8 miles up to the road and back to get some great views of a very impressive tall waterfall. The campground at Deer Creek was the favorite of the trip with the clear creek rushing by. The Owyhigh Lakes Trail rivaled anything we had experienced on the highly touted Wonderland Trail. I would highly recommend this trail to anyone.

Since it was raining in the Redmond/Issaquah area we decided to head down to the "rain shadow" side of Rainier. We were not disappointed as the sky was clear there. There is a fair amount of snow left about 3 to 4 feet deep at the 5200 foot level just before the bridge at 3 miles in. So much snow in fact that we decided to eat our lunch there and not continue to the lakes. I would expect about another 3 to 4 weeks for this to melt out.

Set out on the Owyhigh Lakes trail at about 10 AM. Mine was the only car at the trailhead. The trail is mostly through forest and is wide and nice (no blowdowns). The first part heads due east toward an overlook of Shay Creek. I could hear water in the large basin but couldn't see any. The trail switchbacks up from there but is never that steep. The last part heads south to the lakes. It doesn't open up until you are almost at the lakes. There are nice meadows that are still very much in bloom. Most plentiful were paintbrush, valerian, columbine, lupine, mouse on a stick. Near the lakes was a hillside of my personal favorite the magenta paintbrush. The bugs and flies did get thicker at the meadows. The lakes are off trail and I did not go down to them. There are also great views of the Governors Ridge and Needles as well as Barrier Peak beyond the lakes. Earlier reports by viggo and Trail Pair from a few years ago were helpful in finding the climbers path to Tamanos Mountain. The path is on the right (as both of those reports noted) 0.3 miles past the last Owyhigh lake. Look for it as you leave the forest and another cleared area with nice views appears. The path is not marked but it takes off from a cleared sandy area. The path briefly gets faint but you can find it again further up the meadow. It is pretty easy to follow until the upper meadow where I lost it. But above is a saddle, just head up to it. The first views of the Sarvant Glaciers coming off of the Cowlitz Chimneys is from the saddle as well as up close view of Mt Rainier. The path is easily found on the ridge and continue up until the final rocky summit area is reached. Some minor scrambling might be necessary (but I may have lost the path again). The true summit appeared to be the one furthest north. The views were awesome from the summit. Mt's Rainier, Adams, Stuart, Glacier Peak, Goat Rocks, etc etc. The day was pretty much perfectly clear, no clouds or wildfire haze. I decided to try to descend from another path I had read about that came out at Tamanos Creek (I had noticed it hiking in). I followed what I looked like a path from the summit a ways. However, it faded out and I came to a boulder field. I decided to scramble down instead of backtrack. It was a bit of a pain but I came down into a snowy bowl. A little glassading and I came around to a couple of small lakes/tarns not shown on the maps I had. I circled the larger lake. Lots of little frogs there. On the other side I found a faint path that took me down into another chute. Down that and through a small section of forest and I rejoined the main trail at Tamanos Creek campsite. A short walk and I came again to the creek and the other path. I'll have to research this more in the future. From there I hiked out. I really want to come back here and try Barrier Peak, Governor's Ridge etc. The trail to Owyhigh Lakes in is not hard and it accesses some nice peaks and meadows. Interestingly, there were 3 other cars at the trailhead when I returned yet I saw nobody hiking out. Obviously I had missed folks by reconnecting with the trail further down.