We had a lovely family day hike to Noble Knob. We came in from Corral Pass and were surprised to see "Noble Knob, 3.5 miles" on the sign as we'd been expecting 5 roundtrip, but it was a relatively easy 7 miles even with an 8-year-old human child and a 13-year-old dog. Starting at 5,600 feet means gentle ups and downs to get to the views!
The forest road was pretty tough in spots. Fine in a Subaru, but I wouldn't drive a Prius up here.
We got to the trailhead at about noon on Sunday and only encountered four other groups during our entire hike--a group of backpackers, two groups of day hikers and a group of mountain bikers who passed us once and we never saw again.
Couldn't see much of Rainier as the skies to the south were quite hazy. We observed what looked like a column of wildfire smoke to the southeast--not sure what fire it was but we could smell it at times. Interesting trail to hike right now as much of it is burned out from the Norse Peak fire in 2017.
Signage along the trail is a mess--nice new signs that seem to be erected in the wrong spots. For example: the junction .75 out from Noble Knob and 2.75 from Corral Pass listed it as 1.5 miles away from Noble Knob, and 2 miles from Corral Pass. Bring your own maps and be prepared to wayfind.
Per my 8-year-old: "It was very dirty, fun, super hot, tiring, downhills and uphills, rocky, dead, fun, shady and cool."
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