I tend to be verbose...
so quick version.
great conditions,
great views, lovely lake,
Tahoma partly visible.
pika party.
lots of purple flowers and fuzzy looking pasqueflower seeds.
watch out for animals in the road
see end for sunrise lot info.
My initial plan had been to do owyhigh as it is less weather dependent but then my friend wasn't sure her back could make that. So we looked for a flatter option up in this area but at the last minute my friend ended up not going which left my choices open again. Forecast was either partly cloudy or partly sunny depending on which I used, highs up around 60.
My plan was if it didn't look totally socked in to go all the way up to sunrise visitor center and do this one. As I encountered a mix of sun at the top of Chinook and could see decent visibility for lower elevations when turning into the park, I went all the way up.
As I was still feeling pretty good after reaching the summit, I decided to continue on down the other side of the ridge to pullout corner (sunrise point lookout) and start down the Palisades lake trail. I was tentatively going to head as far as clover lake but ended up spending more time at sunrise lake since I had the place to myself and then went a little beyond the lake, but turned around since I knew I had at least 4 miles left for the return plus any walking around sunrise. Like other folks have noticed this trail is so much more lightly used compared to others in the area. I only passed one other group on trail until I got within about 2 and 1/2 mi of the visitor center on my return -plus a few people at the sunrise point lookout corner parking area (I may or may not have laughed and tallied a point for gaia when a probable touron literally tripped sideways in his flip flops as he started climbing off trail... ) and one other couple from Georgia that were up on the peak waiting for Tahoma to clear before catching a flight home later (hope they made their flight!) Tahoma was doing it's "I'm a high altitude mountain and weather is unpredictable Now you see me, now you don't" game. most of my clearish photos of the mountain were taken luckily up at Dege in the first portion of my hike, despite the fact it was overall cloudier earlier and my return hike was in basically all full sun. There is more shade approaching the lake and part of the ridge closer to the sunrise point lookout corner vs visitor center side.
I left my house a little after 5:00, (only 4 hours after my natural summer time bedtime!) and made it to the parking lot a little after 7:20 with a stop for gas and food in naches. (Shout out to the Sinclair gas station for having homemade breakfast burritos. camo coffee should their hours because they are not open at 5:00. ) started up the trail about 7:30.
The trail was in great condition because it rained a couple days ago so it was not Dusty nor was it muddy. There are a few rocks along this trail, otherwise it's pretty much packed dirt with slight inclines once you head up out of the parking area with only a little bit of incline up to the peak, especially from the sunrise visitor side (felt a bit steeper uphill coming from the lookout point). Most of the trail is on the ridge line, which makes for just lines of peaks, steep drops, pockets of meadows, lakes in all directions as far as you can see. Even if this didn't have (hopefully visible , Tahoma up close) it would have All star views for nearly any other mountain hike.
The hillsides are popping with purple aster and daisies as the primary flowers but there's also some lupine and anemone/ pasque flower seedheads, dandelions in bright yellow and some pockets of Indian paintbrush and several other purple/pink flowers along like fireweed, bells with some other Alpine smaller low moisture flowers like grays lovage, hellebore, bisort, valerian and more I don't necessarily know names of.
There were two elk right on the side of the road as we were driving up to the summit and I heard quite a few birds and saw some scat along the trail from at least a fox-sized animal. I happened upon a pika party down near the lake in the Rocky section where they were not too bothered with my presence running about being busy. When you see them move, you're really reminded they're related to bunnies - I heard them before I saw them but they were active both on my way down to the lake and return, seems like their general hangout.
The only biting bugs I encountered were mosquitos down near the lake and I did put on spray since I'm a bug magnet, but they were far less than my last 4 mt hikes.
Bees were resting(?) On my way out and then active as it had warmed on the way back. HUGE bumblebees Crawling!
The girls ahead of me near the start reported seeing a mt goat early on but I missed it. I was unsure if they meant near the trail or down across the ridge but I spent a chunk of time looking down the ridge at white spots to try and distinguish snow vs rock vs mountain goat.
total distance was about 8.6 miles including one trip up to the top of Dege peak and both sides of the ridge and a just past the first lake (sunrise) on Palisades trail.
Other notes:
Parking lot was maybe 1/3ish full by 740.
I appreciated the sinks with running water in the bathroom for putting my contacts in (my glasses work better for me in low light.)
I dislike the drive in the dark due to all the large -elk, deer, bighorn sheep, and small -coyotes, scamper critters etc in/ near the road from Yakima area and it adds time but such is being there for early morning start!
Googlesphere 360 image from the peak and pika video linked.
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