I did a loop hike today, heading up Cedar Butte via the longer of the two trails, then continuing on by taking the unmaintained connector trail over to the Olallie bike trail.  I returned by continuing down the Olallie trail to the main bike trail on the old railroad grade.

Parking for Rattlesnake Ledge was predictably overflowing today, but there were plenty of spots at the Cedar Falls trailhead ay 10 am, including an entire empty parking bay. There were a fair number of people on the Cedar Butte trail, including several at the top, but the connector trail was deserted except for one trail runner, who seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see her.  There were a handful of bikers (and 3 people on segways!} on the Olallie trail, which ascends the west flank of Mt. Washington.

I would recommend the connector trail to anyone who wants to extend the Cedar Butte hike and who is sufficiently adventurous.  It takes off right at the signed junction below the Butte, but is difficult to spot.  Once you are on it, it isn't difficult to follow, but today it was overgrown in places.  There were a number of trees down, but most were easy enough to navigate, although a couple near the east end required a bit of effort to get over.  There is one section about halfway in which is short but quite steep (downhill if eastbound), and poles were handy here.  The connector is about 1.5 miles.

All told, I measured the loop at 7 miles and just over 1000 feet in elevation gain.

Hiked from the Cedar Falls trailhead, which is about 2 miles away from the Olallie trailhead, versus about 3 miles away from the Homestead Valley trailhead, per the trail map. The trail was in great condition, with only a few muddy patches, and just a couple places where the brush narrows the trail. Mosquitoes are already out, and several landed on me whenever I stopped to take breaks in the forest. Fortunately open areas like the viewpoints were much better, and thanks to long sleeves and bug spray, no bites. But definitely come prepared for mosquitoes on this trail.

Saw red columbine, beargrass, bleeding hearts, holly hocks, and aconite all in bloom, and there were even early huckleberries starting to ripen at low elevation near the beginning of the trail.

Encountered about 8 mountain bikers, and all of them were good about giving advance warning and letting me know if others were coming so I could prepare to move aside.

Great trail to do on an overcast day!

Plan was to head up Mt Washington, over to Change Peak, down Olallie Trail toward Hall Point, then down back to the Iron Horse Trail.  On the Mt Washington Trail, snow becomes consistent around 3,100 feet just before the intersection with the Olallie Trail, though its intermittent all the way up and a lot of the snow still left on the trail is newer snow.  Parts of the trail had a lot of water from snowmelt as well.  I saw maybe 10 people on my way up.  I carried microspikes but didn't end up using them, poles were doing enough for me.  Views were great today, I particularly liked the view of Mt Rainier that you get just before the summit.  Took a short break at the summit and continued over toward change peak. 

There wasn't much snow on 5010-310. Watershed makes it very clear where their boundary is, so it was easy to stay out of there.  I saw some tracks in the new snow that were older and were hard to discern but I later saw more definite ungulate markings.  Maybe mountain goat or elk?  I turned to head north on 5010-350 and encountered deeper snow in several portions of the road.  There were some tracks that predated the recent new snow that we had, which made it slightly easier.  Turning off the onto the Change Peak Trail and there was intermittent new snow and exposed trail, making this final leg much easier.  I made it to the top and started heading down the Northeast ridge to connect with the Olallie Trail.  The new snow made it tricky in some steeper sections, but the flatter portions were fine.  I found a phone camera stand on the way down if anybody lost one, though its in poor shape and probably spent at least one winter under snowpack.  

I made it to the Olallie Trail and noticed the tracks from the recent trip report.  There were a few sections of snow coming down toward Change Creek but then the trail was snow free for a while.  There was some tubular scat that made me curious what animal it was from.  I didn't see any feline or canine tracks around.  As I got down toward the creek I decided not to use the pond trail, though it would have been better to do so in hindsight as the road grade section goes back into deep snow.  This continued further until ending around 3,100 feet, close to the flagging tape for the shortcut right above the lower creek crossing.  There were some flowers blooming between Change Creek and Hall Point.

I stopped by Hall Point and admired the view for a bit before continuing down.  I saw two people heading up which were the first people I had seen since leaving the Mt Washington Trail.  I was reminded how much I enjoy the trail to Hall Point, it's short but quite rugged.  There were some blowdowns along the way too.  I made it down to the Iron Horse Trail and stopped by the port-a-potty at Change Creek which was in excellent condition.  There were a few climbers nearby on some of the drier rocks.  I finished back at the Mt Washington Trailhead for a total of 11 miles.  

A couple times a year my hiking buddy Jeno and I like to take the trails (Southside and West Ridge) less traveled around the backside of Cedar Butte.  The Southside trail is accessed from Saddle Junction on Cedar Butte.  It’s where the Cedar Butte and Boxley Blowout trails meet right before you head up to Cedar Butte summit.  The West Ridge trail is accessed off of the Olallie trail and unless you know where it is, locating it can be a bit of an issue as the cairn that once marked it is gone again.    If you do this hike make sure you have a compass,  GPS or good route-finding skills as it can be a challenge staying on track especially the West Ridge portion.

Now that my PSA is out of the way it’s time to get on with our hike.   Jeno and I met at 6:00 at the Cedar Falls trailhead and headed down the Palouse to Cascades trail via headlamp in a light rain/snow mix.  The bathrooms were clean and stocked at Cedar Falls and as we expected, we were the first two cars in the parking lot at that early hour.   We like to do this loop route via the Olallie trail so it’s a long flat walk down the PTC to where that mixed use trail takes off uphill.       

The Olallie trail has a gentle grade up to where we turned off and headed down the West Ridge trail.  The West Ridge trail is the roughest trail we hiked this morning.   You really have to pay attention to stay on track.  The trail meanders around back in there and with trees and debris down it can be confusing.   A couple of times I had to stop and look around to make sure we were going the right way.  It was interesting as in some spots Jeno commented it looked heavily used and in others it looked like no one had been on the trail in ages.   We did notice for the first time in a couple of years some new flagging ribbons along portions of the trail.  There are not as many as were there previously but they are in place.

The trail skirts a couple of small ponds which had a little water in them before you reach a hill that you climb up (going our direction).  It’s as steep as the Mt Margaret trail for comparison’s sake.  I thought about taking a photo to show how steep it was and stopped part way up to do so and started to slide back down so I said the heck with that and kept going.  At the top you hit the Southside trail.  It’s easy to follow but my gosh it is overgrown especially on the Saddle Junction end.  My boots, socks and shorts got soaked on this trail.  

We made it to Saddle Junction and then it’s a short jaunt up to the Cedar Butte summit.   No views this morning as things were socked in.   We had some snacks and water before we headed back down to Saddle Junction.  We debated going down via the Boxley Blowout route but we were so wet from the Southside trail we elected to just head down the Cedar Butte trail.  To our surprise it had more trees down on it then all the other trails we hiked today combined.  Nothing major to get around or over but just be aware.

After letting up for a while the rain/snow mix started again as we neared the parking lot.  We got back at 9:00 AM on the nose not seeing one person this morning.  Our two cars were still the only ones there.  I noticed on the drive in this morning the overflow lot at Rattlesnake had two cars.  There was eight cars there when I left with only one in the large lot so not only a quiet day for us but it looked like a quiet day over at Rattlesnake as well.

Stay safe everyone.  See you on the trail.      SR

Turned out to be a pretty good loop that Glen99, SoaringEagle, and I took today, as we took the Hall Point trail up, and went to Olallie Knob, Hall Point, Easter Island, Songbird Peak, and hiked back down taking the Olallie Trail as it traverses below the east side of Change Peak. We were unsure of where to go today with the iffy weather, but it worked out great, and we were all pleased with our trip.

We started at the Olallie State Park, and took the trail that gets up to the Zig Zag Trail at the John Wayne Trail. We took the trestle to the west and then took the Hall Point trail. First stop was the side trail to Olallie Knob. The scramble is short to get over there, but there are some exposed spots to be aware of. Even though the rock was wet, the foot and handholds were good. Olallie Knob was cool, as it was my first time doing the little scramble over to it.

We then headed up the ridge, first checking out Hall Point, which usually has a good view, but not today, as we were completely in the fog. We then continued about 0.3 mile and took a left on the MMM trail. Up at the landing we headed  up the ridge. Shortly thereafter is where the scrambling begins  to get up the ridge. There was now 4-6 inches of snow on the ground, so there was lots of mixed scrambling with the snow. Made some parts of the scrambling a bit tricky, especially with the exposure on the entire north side of the ridge.

After the scramble parts to get up to the cool rock formations of Easter Island, it is just a steep walk up in the snow to Songbird Peak or Pt. 4264. There is a large landing here .Around 8-10" of fresh snow up at this point. Clouds started to part, and we started to get some views.

We didn’t really want to down climb the ridge, so we made a loop of it, taking the road over near Change Peak, and down that way. I used spikes with the mixed scrambling with the snow. The others did not. The only post holing we did was down by the pond, which caught us by surprise, and was annoying. Fortunately it was only for a short section.

We finished at 5:45pm, after starting at 10;20am 10 miles with 3487 ft gain