Tatoosh Ridge

After a favorable report from the ranger we set out at a little before 9AM from the well-marked trailhead with high hopes to reach the lookout. It was quite misty and the vegetation very wet for the first two miles but this was not unwelcome since the trail climbed quite determinedly during that period. A couple of streams before the two-mile mark, and two unmarked junctions, the first an abandoned trail going east and the second a trail going off to the northwest with a nice resting log, before finally the actual Tatoosh Lakes trail junction appeared with a nice sign. And the sun also made its appearance here, in time to put a glow on the fantastic flowerfields and meadows all along the ridge.

As we moved east along the long ridge traverse and climbed slightly from the junction, Mount Rainier appeared behind us in all its close-up glory, only to be hidden just 5 minutes later by mist moving up from the valley. This was to be the story of the day's weather. Sometimes the mist was thick enough to almost obscure our feet.

As always on this trail, the wildflowers were thick and stunning, sometimes presenting a concentrated fragrance. The avalanche and glacier lilies comingled in profusion were particularly lovely.

The other story of the day was snow, typical of this late snow year. We hit our first snowpatches right around the 2 mile mark, and the first snowpatches were small, but they got larger and larger, crossing the trail and steadily becoming more hazardous with longer and steeper runouts. We could generally find the trail pretty easily between the snowfields for the first mile or so after the Lakes junction, but then coming up over a shoulder a large pile of snow with a steep drop on the other side led us to don our microspikes. From that point we could see across to where the trail wound around the next and final shoulder to join with the trail up to the lookout, and could also see the lookout itself, but the snowfields between us and those points were just not safely crossable without ice axes and crampons. We satisfied ourselves by setting out uphill to the top of a knob just west of the lookout which had a great view of the lake just melting below, Rainier just north and both Adams and St Helens peeking over the cloud deck to the south. After enjoying our lunch there we retraced our steps back, never quite getting an unobscured view of Rainier again. We reached the car at about 2:30PM, quite satisfied with our day. This trail may be 2-3 weeks from being able to safely pass all the way to the lookout.