Shriner Peak — Saturday, Jul. 17, 2010

Mount Rainier Area > SE - Cayuse Pass/Stevens Canyon

This fine trail is snowfree to a short way past the first tremendous views of the Mountain. Smallish snowpatches start at about 4900'. The switchbacks in the woods between about 5100' and 5300' are perhaps half snow-covered; some of the snow heaps are still fairly sizable, but runouts are all benign, so no ice axe needed (poles could be helpful). Navigation is mostly fairly straightforward, except at one completely covered switchback, where the turn is easy to miss. By afternoon, there were lots of tracks, so people were not going astray. Thus, so long as the tracks don't melt away before being replaced, staying on-trail should not be a serious problem (if the tracks do melt, turn sharp left, rather than proceeding more-or-less straight along a rather sketchy path, at a point atop a large snowheap where the trail direction is not obvious - I wish I could do a better description, but I can't). No long after this possible routefinding challenge, the route largely emerges from the forest at about 5300' or 5400'; no more troublesome snowpatches. The north end of the summit (the usual sit-and-soak-up-stunning-view-while-having-lunch area) is snowfree, including the immediate environs of the lookout tower. A bit to the south is a sea of snow. We didn't go very far south on it, but I suspect most if not all of the campground area is still snow-covered. In summary, so long as the snowpatches in the upper woods switchbacks are tracked, this trail should pose no real problems for the typical hiker.