In my opinion, the only reasons to hike Tonga Ridge are the huckleberries and to climb Mt. Sawyer. The rest of the hike is kind of bleh. Our trip - a Hike-a-Thon hike with four members of the WTA staff - was only partially successful on both of these ventures.

The Huckleberries - There were a few to scavenge, but the big show is still probably two weeks out. With about 45 minutes of picking, each of us were able to gather about 3/4 of a cup. We had the perennial debate about whether we were actually picking blueberries or huckleberries. The consensus was that the shiny purple berries from the taller bushes along the trail were definitely hucks, but the chalkier blue berries growing from the groundcover were either blueberries or a different variety of huckleberries. Does anyone know the answer to this issue?

Whatever the case, if you go hiking this area now, you will be able to harvest a small amount of berries, but it's a lot of work. I say wait.

The Hike - Tonga Ridge is infuriatingly destinationless. We wandered awhile, thought about trying to find Fisher Lake, harvested huckleberries and wondered why anyone would really want to hike this trail. A few views, but not much.

On the return, however, Lace & I decided to go up the unmarked side trail to Mt. Sawyer. Quickly, we realized that this was the reason to come. Each foot uphill slowly revealed new peaks - gorgeous. The way was initially very steep, but then gained elevation more moderately. There were berry bushes everywhere, just waiting to ripen. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to make the summit, but we found a nice rocky outcrop to take in the view - including the top of Mt. Rainier. I imagine the summit is even more stunning.

The hike to Mt. Sawyer is a nice quick day hike. The trail is in excellent shape and the trail head from the Tonga Ridge trail is easy to spot. The hike to the top of Mt. Sawyer is basically snow free. There were 2 small patches that were maybe 10' across. You could see the trail easily from both sides.

There is no water on this trail, so be sure to bring some. There were bugs today, they weren't too bad as long as you were moving, but at the top bug spray would have been a benefit, not necessary, but nice to have.

We didn't actually do the hike, but wanted to. Unfortunately, there was still too much snow on the road leading to the trailhead. We stopped and parked about a half mile from the trailhead due to snow and hiked toward the trailhead. Along the way we encountered a high clearance pickup truck that had gotten stuck in the snow. We encountered a couple other hikers coming back from the trail who told us that the trail was still mostly covered in snow and not hikable. So if you were thinking about doing this hike soon, you might want to wait for a month or so.

The gang for this trip included Blissman, Chippie and Mo. I didn't know how much snow was up there for certain having heard various conflicting reports, but that's probably because things are changing daily. My last report had snow in Skykomish. Not today. Still, we drove the Foss River Road planning to ski Sobieski Mt., but we encountered a tree down before we hit any snow. The snow level looked to be quite a ways up so, we backed up to try for Tonga Ridge. We drove as far as our passenger car wanted to go to about 2 miles past the junction of Foss River Road and FS Road #6830. Snow was skimpy at this point and we had to watch for rocks. SUV's and four wheel nut cases were driving beyond us at amazing speeds making us feel like wimps who could be hit at any moment by testosterone heavy bozos. To be fair though, they did slow down for us once they saw us, but they made an awful mess of the road churning up rocks and creating huge ruts. Not the usual ruts that trucks make, but these guys get through the deep stuff and their wheels make ruts 3 feet deep or worse. When they start to have difficulty getting traction, they just churn up more rocks and crud. So, the drivers may be polite, but the machines are rude! And scary. Our group determined to be cheerful none the less and onward we went knowing that this was not going to be an easy ski negotiating the ruts. The snow itself was very good. Powder with no crust. Dreamstuff really. So, we skied onward to the pass and junction that leads to the Tonga Ridge trailhead. After the junction of road 310 the road was free of ruts since the nasty machines decided to stop at the pass. Yippee! This was the best skiing of the trip. It's too bad that we had to ski for 4 1/2 miles to get to this 1 1/2 miles of good skiing! There was about four feet of snow at the trailhead. We had a very relaxing lunch with views to Sobieski in the warm sunshine, and enjoyed pleasant conversation and Godiva chocolate. Then, the trip down. It was fabulous in the unrutted part. A blast because the snow conditions were so great. The main road was a challenge, but we were saved some grief because some snowmobiles had been down the ruts smoothing them down a bit. Thanks, boys! Still, hardly the fun glide we'd have preferred. This was a tougher trip than I remembered. 12 miles round trip is a healthy distance, but the conditions made for little gliding on the trip up and lots of tromping slowing us down a lot. We took 4 hours up and 3 hours down. One of these days the forest service is going to have to address these big new machines that are getting up higher and higher in the deep snow. I'd been told in the past by the Forest Service that skiers only needed to wait until the snow was deep enough to prevent trucks from going further and then we'd have some nice truck free skiing. Well, the way they are building these machines, that's just not feasible anymore as a way of controlling their access. They can go anywhere. Snowmobiles are tolerable and sometimes helpful, but these trucks are just a disaster. Anyhow, dinner at Eddie's Bar and Grill in Monroe. Nothing to write home about, but decent beer and sweet potato fries.