Red Top #1364.1
Jun 25, 2006
- Type of Outing
- Day hike
- Read More in our Hiking Guide
- Hike: Red Top Lookout
- Region: Snoqualmie Pass -- Salmon La Sac/Teanaway
- Agency: Okanogan - Wenatchee National Forest, Cle Elum Ranger District
- Trails: Red Top (#1364.1)
- Avg Rating: 3.12
- Be Aware Of
- Blowdowns
The weather was in the high 80's at 5000 feet, so we picked an easy trail to get some views, flowers and explore. Red Top is a bald spot on Teanaway Ridge with great views of Rainier, the Stuarts, the Cle Elum and Kittitas Valley areas, and ridges too numerous to name here. There are a few different ways to access Red Top; today we just drove up to the tiny camping/picnic area at the end of the road (FS 9702) a mostly well-graded gravel road.
From road end, walk north to a trail junction where you have a choice, to follow the trail that contours the butte towards the agate fields or to climb to the old firetower. We picked the low route, strolling through intermittent sun and shade enjoying the ancient Douglas and Grand Firs that cling to life on this craggy summit, as well as surprising lush flowers and shrubs. We passed by some very tired agate hunters who hadn't had much luck in finding the jasper geodes for which this area is so well-known among rockhounds.
We wandered past a blow-down which blocked the trail at a junction with Trail 1364, a faint, but pretty route through forest and glen from FS Road 9702. Topping a slight rise, we found sunny, rocky meadows of lomatium, lupine, currant, waterleaf, bitter cherry, balsamroot, spring beauty (in the shade) and assorted other beauties soon to bloom. Views extended in both directions, east and west, as the trail follows the ridgetop.
My friend noticed some craters and rock piles; we were in the agate beds. The area didn't look quite as raw as it did six years ago when I first visited. Hikers wanting a longer walk can continue north to the Blue Creek/Jack Creek Road (9738) via trail and a grassy, flower-filled dozer road to near the trailhead of the Teanaway Ridge trail. A car shuttle would be needed.
We returned by climbing the rather exposed, rocky and airy trail to the fire tower, pass colorful clumps of hardy penstemon, goose-foot violet, yellow-flowered draba, yellow daisies, alumroot, yarrow and assorted lupines. The path climbs in switchbacks over the crest and descends again, opening to views of the tower, Mt. Rainier, Stuart, etc. and then back to the lovely cooler forest. I attempted to identify the various drainages and peaks of the Teanaway that laid out in front of us to my friend who was new to most of the area, Earl, Navaho, Miller, the Brothers, Ingalls and Iron, to name a few.
We completed our explorations of the weekend by driving over the crest of Teanaway Ridge and dropping down into the Jack Creek drainage, emerging just south of 29 Pines Campground on the North Fork Teanaway Road. I noted a couple of interesting flowers on the drive, some malva (pink hollyhock-like) and a rayless rudbeckia.
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