The Suiattle River Road is in good shape all the way to the road end. There is minimal blow-down on the Sulphur Mountain Trail and no snow until you reach elevation 3100. At elevation 3400 I put on snowshoes.At about elevation 4760 I lost the trail and headed east (more or less straight uphill) to the ridge and continued up the ridge to elevation 5550, and turned around there. Beautiful sunny day with some nice views of Glacier Peak, too. I met only one single hiker on the way down.

See the excellent WTA Trail Review for details. The trail was deserted (on a sunny Friday), snow-free, and has a few easily bypassed blowdowns. No snow on the trail. It certainly is steep and the biting flies ensure that you won't stop too long to catch your breath. The view at the top (which you only get after nearly 5 miles in the trees) will take your breath away. And the horsefiles will take a significant fraction of your blood away, given the chance. I lingered there for 1 1/2 hours. Four hours up. Two hours down. My new GPS claims that it's 2.3 miles as the crow flies from carpark to the grassy summit at 6000' but 5.5 miles by trail.

It's about two hours to the Suiattle River trailhead if you're flying. A few feet down S.R. trail Sulphur Mt. trail appears on the left. This trail does not fool around. We started switchbacking steeply. The trail moderated before settling down to a 16% average grade. The snow has melted all the way up to 3200' on the SW facing slope. The snow became solid at 3600'. No longer on trail, we generally climbed up and to the right. We occasionally caught glimpes of Lime Ridge across the valley. Up and right, up and right, up and right. Snow conditions were mostly good, with some wallowing to be expected this time of year. As we approached the top the trees started to thin. Somehow we were at the exact spot the USGS topo and the Greentrails maps show the trail ending. We had stellar views of Green, Huckleberry, Box, and Lime mountains, with Glacier Peak taking the cake. It would have been nice to traverse just to the next knob for a better view up valley, but the exposure on a steep snow slope on a 70 degree day deterred us from trying. No real views until the top. I think we'll try to get the real Sulphur Mt peak (another mile away and 700' higher) after the fifteen feet of snow is gone. We lost our tracks in the snow about half way down. Being tired kept us from a thorough backtrack, and probably added about an hour of off-trail brush thrashing on the way down. We emerged from the bush 200 yards from the trail. Round trip: 8 miles, 4200' elevation gain, 8 hours.

The Sulphur Mountain trailhead can be found a short 1/8 mile down the Suiattle River trail #784. This seldom visited trail is in very good shape compared to most. The first mile or so is being taken over by salal and there's around 30 fallen trees accross the trail, but the trail being completely water free has no water caused damage except for a short rocky and rooty stretch at the very start. If you look at the USGS map you will see the Sulphur Mountain trail rendered as a long squiggly line that gains 4200 feet in 5 miles so be prepared to do lots of squiggly climbing as the trail switchbacks up an average 16% grade through forest before it breaks out into open hillside just a short distance before the official trail ending and your very first chance of un-obstructed views to the south and west. Due south is the magnificant northern face of Glacier Peak. Below you to the north you will see Sulphur Lake and the remnants of a silted in Lookout Lake. Trails lead down to the lake, but our destination, Sulphur Mountain, lay across the basin from us to the south-east. We followed a faint climbers path which at times also played connect-the-dots with marmot holes. Their early-warning systems sounded as I approached. The sketchy scrambler's path leads around the rim of the basin through scrub, over large boulders and up the west ridge of Sulphur Mountain to its summit at 6735 feet. Though Sulphur Mountain is not near the top of most climbers' lists it's a worthy summit in a seldom visited area with great views in all directions. We counted only two other people on the trail on a beautiful early-fall Sunday.