Started hiking around 8:30am. Parking lot had plenty of space available when I arrived and when I returned back the lot had filled up a bit, but still many spaces available. Road in has a few nasty pot holes but can be easily avoided.
The trail was a bit slippery and muddy on the start but dried out as you gained elevation. There were numerous trees blown down across the trail that required you to either climb over or duck under. I counted about three large blown down trees and four smaller saplings. The worst blown down tree required you to go a bit off the trail to climb over due to its size.
The trail becomes very icy and snowy near the top. The boulder field is particularly icy and snowy so I used micro spikes to traverse it. If you want to go past the boulder field towards the haystack the trail is packed but entirely snow covered with icy sections. I would recommend bringing micro spikes to avoid slipping in this last section even though it’s only a small fraction of the entire trail.
I attempted to climb up the haystack with a climbing helmet and micro spikes. The scramble is half covered in ice and snow and is very slippery. It gets warm enough in the day that snow and ice melts down the haystack, so a lot of the exposed rocks are wet with running water which makes getting a good grip difficult. I noticed some ice falling off the haystack. I went about half way up to the saddle point. At the half way point I realized I wouldn’t have the energy to return after climbing up and slowly descended back down. Four other climbers attempted the haystack while I was there. One aborted at the beginning of the haystack. A couple in trail runners (?) made it to the saddle point and turned around. Another climber made it up somewhere but I didn’t stay around to see how far he went.
I had a nice lunch at the base of the haystack looking towards Seattle, the Olympic mountains and Mount Rainier until I was harassed by several gray jays. Very clear day with no wind and great visibility.
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