The last time I did this hike Bush Jr. was in the White House and smart phones hadn't even been invented yet. It was going to be a bright clear day today so I decided to return and see if anything had changed in the last 20+ years. I arrived at the parking lot at 8:30AM, and it was already about 1/3 full. There are some pretty nasty potholes when you enter, but otherwise any car is fine. I was a bit amused to see it looked as if a Tesla car show was taking place.
It was below freezing so I wore my heavy ski jacket. However this is a trail that gets right down to business from the very beginning so I had to take it off a half-mile up the trail despite the temperature. The trail is very dry and dusty right now, and if it wasn't for the chilly temperatures you'd think it was August. I didn't even see any frost until the three mile mark, but soon after that I encountered a few small patches of compact snow and slippery ice just before the trail broke out into the boulder field. No need for spikes, just be careful how you step. From there I encountered a small area of compact snow between the small forest traverse to the Haystack Basin. The basin itself is mostly snow-free except in the few spots where the sun doesn't touch it.
The sky was amazingly clear and Seattle/Bellevue and the Olympics were in plain view. Rainier was starting to wear a hat but was otherwise in the clear as well. Foot traffic was fairly mild for a Mount Si hike, with just enough other people to know you've got company but never a crowd anywhere. It took me just over 2 hours to reach the top (far from my record of 1 hour and 20 minutes one summer day in the 1990s when I had a quarrel with my dad and stormed up the trail to blow off steam). I only spent a half hour at the top before getting cold and heading down, and it took another two hours to return to my vehicle. By then the parking lot was completely full.
So, has anything changed in 20 years? Aside from the trees growing bigger and hiding most of the peek-a-boo trail views I used to remember, not really. The biggest change is to the town of North Bend down below, which is now an endless sea of houses where open grassy fields used to be.
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