My friend and I arrived at the trailhead (shared with Summit Lake) around 9:45 on a Monday morning. The lot was maybe half full. The road up is VERY rough- my friend drove her Subaru Forester and was able to make it just fine, but you definitely want to have a higher clearance vehicle for this one.
The trail itself is in excellent shape! After about a mile, the trail arrives at Twin Lake and splits: to the left takes you to Summit Lake, and to the right is Bearhead Mountain, which we took. The trail has a gradual, moderate incline at times, and other times is fairly flat. There were lots of blueberries just starting to ripen along the trail; we stopped to munch on a few as we headed up.
The last 30 minutes of the hike to the top was GORGEOUS. There were so many wildflowers blooming and tons of butterflies and honeybees. The views of Rainier were amazing! Once we reached the top, the flies got more annoying, but after applying bug spray they were better. My friend and I didn’t get any bites, and there weren’t any mosquitos, which is a plus!
We spent about half an hour minutes at the top eating lunch and enjoying the view, and then headed back down. It took us 1h 45m to get to the top, and about 1h 15m to get back down. This included stopping for photos and water breaks.
All-in-all, this was a beautiful, peaceful hike through old-growth forest and wildflower meadows. Aside from the rough road, it was a dream!
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