Green Mountain — Tuesday, Jul. 8, 2025

Well. A marmot stole our hiking pole. More on that later. 

My husband was delighted to finally take me up Green Mountain for an early anniversary hike. Our compromise in planning was to hike it in July before the heat of August, sacrificing the ripeness of berries later in summer,  but we thoroughly enjoyed the wildflowers and views! We did time it with the heat of July, but an 8 am start time avoided the worst of the heat.

The road up is navigable, though exercise your pothole-dodging skills. (I actually enjoy the challenge). Terrain-wise, the trail is pretty consistently inclined to make your cardiovascular system kick nicely into gear, and stay that way. If we stopped, we were devoured by mosquitos. Best to not stop. We set out at 8 am with one other car parked, though we never saw the hiker, and had the place to ourselves until passing 8 people in 3 groups on the descent.

Glacier Peak is my husband's second love,  and boy are you constantly rewarded with stellar views during the hike! It's absolutely worth the climb. I marked this as snow-free, but there are a couple of lingering areas trailside where one can ice ones knees, or scrape down to clean snow and store under your hat for a cool down.

All of this leads to the lookout. Gorgeous views again, and adorable marmots crawling all over. I had a lovely time chatting with them and taking their beauty shots, up until one screamed EVER so loud about 4 feet from me and I jumped just about as high. We had a good laugh, snacked at the lookout until the bugs won the war and chased us off, then went to collect our poles. My husband had left his maybe 10 feet from the lookout. One remained. The other? Gone! Where? There! In that marmot's possession as it chewed on the handle and dragged the pole across and over the ridge. Couldn't believe it. So, if you happen upon a well-chewed green Black Diamond trekking pole on Green Mountain, please let me know. I'm not planning to use it again, but it would make a fun wall mount.