Went out Saturday morning with the goal of Mount Washington via the Olallie Trail starting at the Rattlesnake Lake TH. No cars in the Palouse-Cascade State Park parking at 5:45am other than mine and my friend's. Set out shortly after 6am by headlamp and started down the trail. The first two miles on the Palouse-Cascades trail went by fast and were uneventful. We started up the Olallie trail which was both of our first times on it. Trail is in great condition and maintains a nice grade the majority of the time. Snow started as a dusting part of the way through the traverse before tight switch backs (about 6.5 miles from the TH) . After about a half mile of climbing and reaching bench number 3 (I think) snow was closer to 4 inches deep. I should mention that there were no other tracks so we were breaking trail the whole time. The snow got deeper as we went with the deepest being 10-12 inches if you stepped in the right spot. Once we connected with the Mount Washington trail, the snow became packed down the rest of the way up. Weather was quite windy at the top but we luck out and there was minimal rain and only light flurries towards the top. Neither of us needed micro spike the entire time and my friend didn't even use a pole although these wouldn't hurt to have. Great day out and only saw two bikers going up the Olallie Trail, one on the Palouse to Cascades trail and no one on the Mount Washington Trail. I attached the Strava link to the run below,
Stats:
Total Distance: 18.4 Miles, 3600 ft gain
Time Up: 2 Hr 34 min
Time Down: 1 Hr 50 min
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