Mount Defiance, Web Mountain via Putrid Pete's Peak — Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016

Snoqualmie Region > Snoqualmie Pass

I am pretty sure this hike will stay vividly in my memory for quite some years to come. If you intend to take the same route (Picture A) as we did yesterday, I hope these notes can be of some help to you. We, a group of five, started from the same trail head as Ira Spring Trail/Bandera etc., and headed to P3 (Putrid Peters Peak). The trail to P3, hasn’t been a popular one; It is quite and woody; we enjoyed every part of it as much as we could: mossy forest with appealing woody incense, deciduous plants finishing off all theirs leaves, rain water deposits anywhere it wants… Yes, trail was still visible although for a couple times, we had to rely on Gaia to keep us stay on right path. Thump of rules: follow the trail that goes up. Comfortable and easy -- only for the first 3 miles. As the trail swiftly turns to be steeper and harder it becomes more ambiguous as well. I wouldn’t worry too much about finding the “right trail” though: trail is nowhere but everywhere; just keep going up toward the peak (it is actually only the false peak). Well, yes, we the mountain lovers will try our best avoid stepping on shrubs… After we reached the false peak, last lag, about a third of a mile, to the “true” peak was a no-brainer for us. We were all simply in awe of our marvelous mother nature! (Picture B was taken here). Our next stop was Mt. Defiance. The greater, or say, harder, journey just got started. Scrambling on the ridge was out of our option since it had been raining, non-stop, all day long; it was too risky for us to take on slippery and sometime loose rockets on the ridge. Instead, we scrambled about 20 to 30 yards below the ridge line for about half a mile before we merged back to the trail that appeared to be safe. No doubt, it’s scary and dangerous. Praise Lord, we were all safe! One thing we were so proud of was that we always kept looking over each other’s shoulder! Weather turned even worse when we got close to the peak of Mt. Defiance. After a short conversation, we decided to give up for our safety. Instead, we took a shortcut (scrambling) to the main trail and safely returned to the trailhead. I would like to mention that our great hike/scrambling would be much less memorable without detailed preparation by our team lead. For a hike/scrambling like this one, especially on a treacherous day like yesterday, it is so important to have a great team that help each other, trust each other.