Mostly Old Trail but hiked some new trail at the top. 

6:30AM -- 6 cars in lot. 11:15AM lot was full. 

A previous trip report complained about dust. Well, yeah, probably compared to 1 month or more ago. But compared to many local trails now, due to how much of the trail is in shaded woods, not bad at all.

A few bugs but not bad at all in the morning -- summited at 9am. So few people -- was wonderful. Didn't envy those hiking up as I was descending.

Wildflowers few and fading fast. Skies hazy in all directions. If that's surprising to you, you're not paying attention.   

Great way to start the week with a quick trip up and down Mt Si via the old trail.  The trail is in good shape but starting to get a little dusty in places, which makes it a little slippery in some of the steeper places.  Saw quite a few Tiger Lillies on the way up and a bunch of Indian Paintbrush near the Snoqualmie Valley overlook. There was a little haze, but you could see Bellevue, Seattle, the Olympics Range, and of course Mt Rainier.

Took the Old Si trail up Mt Si, and the new trail down. Parking lot was filling up quickly by 7 AM on Saturday Mt. But most of those people were going up Little Si. The Old Si trail was relatively quiet. The trail was well maintained and easy to follow. There is one spot towards the beginning where we missed the turn off to follow the trail up to the peak, when it left the trail we were on with a sharp right turn, before quickly realizing our mistake.

Keep an eye out on the forest floor for interesting wild flowers like ghost plants, sugarsticks, and coralroot 

Trail is in great shape, the cloudy weather kept most people away today.  I only saw a few people on the way and a few more on the return.  Lots of clouds today, so not many views, but i did see a few flowers and had a good workout.

As others have noted, the main Si trailhead has an abundance of large potholes.  With careful, slow driving almost any car can manage them.

Starting from the main Si trailhead, and turning onto the Talus Loop trail, I headed to the Teneriffe-Si trail and eventually to the Teneriffe Falls Connector trail.  These are all in excellent shape.  Once up the 8 or so remaining switchbacks on the Teneriffe Falls trail you get to see and hear a large water volume cascading down.

The easy slope of the preceding trails ends abruptly with the ascent to the SW ridge ascending Teneriffe.  This is more of a scramble than a hike, and IMHO easier going up than down.  Snow has largely melted, not really starting until about 4400'.  There's a short steep rocky section perhaps 200' below the summit that's largely free of snow; and the final summit block is also clear, but otherwise there's some steepish snow in this final stretch.  There are great views from the top.

Rather than going back the way I had come up, I took the Mount Teneriffe trail northwest and downward to the intersection of an old roadway.  This section was largely snowed in, but there were tracks in the snow making this fairly easy to follow.  From the intersection there is an unmarked way-trail to Dixie Peak, starting in snow but becoming *mostly* snow-free until its end.  There are a few ups and downs along this way as well as a number of downed trees blocking the way but generally it's easier traveling than going up Teneriffe from the falls.  There are nice views from Dixie too.

Being lazy I decided to go cross-country from Dixie down to the Mount Teneriffe trail, avoiding traveling back eastward to the intersection.  At first this was easy, traveling in an older forest with little brush.  I managed to descend plunge-stepping in snowfields much of the way to the trail but eventually had some medium-density brush and final steep terrain.  It probably saved some time but I can't really recommend it.

The Mount Teneriffe trail (here about 4000' elevation) was mostly snow covered and it was getting late enough in the day that it was becoming mushy and my boots sank with every step.  Finally approaching the Mount Si connector the snow faded away and I was able to make better progress.  I descended the Old Si trail down to North's Road, which took me to the Doug Fir trail and the Main Si trail back to the trailhead.  These trails are all in pretty good condition, with just a few trees across North's Road.  The yellow violets and trillia are fairly abundant on the Old Si trail, and if you look carefully there are Calypso (aka Fairy Slipper) Orchids as has been reported.

This took awhile to accomplish - nearly 9 hours with about 2 hours of stop-and-gape (or eat) time for the nearly 12 miles and 5700 vertical feet.  I carried snowshoes but never used them.