Mount Jupiter — Saturday, Jun. 12, 2021

It has been four years since I was last at Mount Jupiter.  I love this trail as a late spring trip that gets you up high on a ridge with good views, gorgeous rhododendrons and quality tread.  The road to the trailhead has been locked for several years.  Last spring, the Forest Service told me the logging company wasn’t allowing anyone in there, even on foot.  But this Saturday, I walked the extra hour in and out on the logging road to the trailhead.   Few people go there now and the WTA trip reports have petered out.  This is really sad.  Other than new damage that the logging company has inflicted on one section of trail, the trail is in excellent condition.  No downed trees, no wash-outs, no muddy spots and the brush, where it exists, is only calf-high salal.  It’s just a wonderful trail.  Not only are there pink rhododendrons along most of the seven miles of trail, but there are beautiful clumps of white beargrass, lupines and other wildflowers in bloom.  The trail passes through two clearcuts.  The first, fifteen to twenty years old, starts at the trailhead.  Young trees are growing back in with rhododendrons in between, but it’s still open enough for expansive views along the way to the ridge.  The clearcut not offensive but pleasant to walk through.  Unfortunately, the second clearcut has been hugely expanded since my last visit four years ago.  What is worse is that it is now slashed by an incredibly ugly new logging road.  In so doing, the logging company bulldozed the logging debris right over the trail where it passes through the clearcut.  A little of this can be seen in my photo.  This logging road leaves so much destruction for so little gain.  The soil in this area is low in nutrients and very acidic.  The trees grow slowly and are very small.  Hardly any trees are 18” in diameter and the majority are less than a foot.  Places like this are being stripped because bigger trees are in short supply.  In spite of the fact that high quality timber reserves have been depleted, we scarcely ever hear about alternatives to wood for home construction.  If we want more forest spared from logging, we need to consider alternatives to wood.  Plaster straw bale construction, cob, rammed earth, pumice;  they are all durable, low-cost, fire-proof, sustainable, energy efficient alternatives; yet we don’t hear them discussed even when the media reports the skyrocketing costs of lumber.  There is major construction industry opposition and are many municipal zoning law hurdles to a sustainable housing industry.  Why is it when we hear a commitment to convert from gasoline to electric-powered vehicles, alternatives to lumber in the housing industry are not a topic for discussion?  Why are we allowing so much logging when it isn’t necessary?

The older part of this second, vast clearcut which I went through the last time I was here, is actually not that ugly.  Because the stumps are so small, they don’t overpower the scene and the beautiful flowers and views across the Duckabush valley redeem that clearing.  The skeletons of the large rhododendrons that died back when suddenly exposed to full sun are still there, but new, sun-tolerant sprouts are loaded with blossoms.   But the road and the huge size of this more recent stripping of the landscape is another matter.

Saturday’s weather was beautiful and sunny until late in the afternoon.  I didn’t quite make it to the top of Mount Jupiter, turning back at a steep snowfield at 5300’, four hundred feet below the summit.  I tried to climb around it, but the wind started picking up and I abandoned the effort.  I’ve been at this snowfield before.  In a couple of weeks, it should be easy to navigate.  Until that snowfield, the trail is almost snow free.  The next few weeks are the best time to do this hike.  Since the summit of Jupiter is now a nineteen mile roundtrip from the gate, many people will probably prefer to do this trip as a backpack.  Because this is a ridge, once all the snow melts, there’s no water.  The rhododendrons are scattered over more than two thousand feet of elevation, there will be some blooming higher up after the lower ones are finished.  One fact about rhododendrons is that they cannot put flowers on a shoot that bloomed the previous season.  Shrubs that bloomed spectacularly last season may have only old brown seed capsules at their branch tips this year, and vice versa.  Sometimes it’s clear that for certain sections, you’ve arrived at the wrong year and there are few blooms.  Other places are nice and pink, or will be, when they are ready. 

Finding the trailhead is a little confusing.  Some turns are signed, but some are not.  Stay on the main road at all junctions.  After the road climbs up through power lines, there is another junction, signed J1100 and J1000.  Go left on J1100.  The orange gate is shortly beyond.  From there, the trees are painted with orange mileage numbers at half mile intervals.  The gate is shortly beyond “3”, the trailhead is beyond “5 ½”.  Stay on the main road.  When you hit an old clearcut on the right side of the road after the 5 ½ marker, you will encounter a switchback that turns sharply to the right, going uphill.  Skip that turn and go straight ahead on the grassy road.  The trailhead is about 100 feet beyond the junction.