Easton Ridge

From Easton Ridge on a clear day you can see Mount Rainier and Mount Stuart. Views also include Kachess Lake and Cle Elum Lake. In spring and early summer, there are abundant wildflowers. In late summer, ripe huckleberries await you. In fall huckleberries and vine maples put on a fall color show.

But to enjoy this trail you need to be in fairly good physical condition. It is not for couch potatoes. The trail is steep but smooth, there are none of the typical roots and rocks you often see on other trails.

You start at a small, unimproved trailhead for two trails: Easton Ridge and Kachess Ridge trail. Walk a short access trail to where the two trails split. A sign there indicates Kachess Ridge Trail, but not the Easton Ridge Trail. Take a right and head downhill to Silver Creek, then upstream to a dam and a foot bridge. Take the foot bridge, crossing the creek. In spring you may be lucky enough to spot a small delicate flower, calypso orchids. They are hard to find, and a sighting is a special occurrence. 

From here, the trail starts climbing steep uphill with many switchbacks in a forest. In spring and early summer, you will see many flowers along the way: paintbrush, Hooker's fairybell, penstemon, ceanothus, serviceberry, vanilla leaf, lupine, starflower, trillium, Olympic onion, spreading phlox, silver crown, Columbia lewisia, desert parsley, etc.

You can see Kachess Lake along the way. You will reach the trail junction with the Domerie Divide Trail at about 1.3 miles and 1,100 feet of elevation gain. Turn right here and climb steeply up along the spine of the ridge. On a clear day you will be able to see Mount Rainier beyond nearby mountains on your right.

About 2 miles from the trailhead, the trail flattens and continues on ridgetop through forests and open hillsides. In spring there are flowers along the trail: smooth Douglasia, glacier lily, Oregon anemone, larkspur, arnica, Sitka valerian, balsamroot, etc.

Be careful when you traverse on a narrow section of the trail on a steep slope. You arrive at the rocky summit after a little over 3 miles. There is a large rock and remnants of a cabin that once stood there. Enjoy the views of Mount Stuart and Cle Elum Lake.

Most hikers turn around here but the original trail goes to the north of the high point down along the base of the rocky summit. From the high elevation, the trail drops gradually, following the ridgeline, to its eastern terminus at a primitive road on private land.