Stillaguamish Peak, Perry Creek — Saturday, Sep. 27, 2025

Bears, berries and fall color made this quite a memorable hike!

Parking lot was 3/4 full when I arrived, and started on trail at 9:30am. Trail is pretty mellow and smooth cruising for the first couple miles until transitioning to the rocky open leafy slopes. It’s a wide range of fall color right now. Much of the undergrowth is past prime. Vine maples, alder and ash are at prime. And, many of the large deciduous trees haven’t started turning yet.

The creek above the falls was easily crossed with mostly dry rockhopping. From there, the steeper forested section to the ridge was mainly clear with only a couple logs to step over.

Just before the ridge at 5k’ I took the Stillaguamish climber’s trail west. The junction is pretty obvious if you’re looking for it and has a couple branches laid across on the ground. From here to the peak the path is mainly easy to follow most of the way. It gets faint in some areas, and has some fun route finding problems to solve. But, overall, a pretty clean trail for a climber’s path.

The way begins descending through a short section of forest before opening up into a beautiful landscape of wide open colorfully carpeted huckleberry and blueberry slopes. TONS of berries, all perfectly ripe. Needless to say, travel here was slow but delicious. I had a feeling I was going to see some bears, and I did. 3 on the way out, and 3 on the return. All were fairly close to the trail, but easy to spot from a distance. They were all in berry-mode and not really concerned about me, and it was super cool watching them in their element.

The 3rd bear was pretty much on trail near the final ridge crest before getting to the Stilly summit block. The bear eventually moved on but just farther down the trail and in the direction I needed to go. Not wanting to ‘chase’ a bear, I hiked slowly making noise most of the way.

Once cresting the last ridge before the summit climb, the trail gets faint and crosses a very exposed notch. There are some narrow ledges just past the notch covered with scree that look kinda sketchy at first, but aren’t too bad if you’re comfortable with class 2/3 exposure. The bear had no trouble in this section, moving fast with no hesitation. Pretty impressive.

Just past the ledges, I picked a route up the last 150 feet or so to the summit. It’s still fairly exposed all the way up over scree-covered rocks, mainly class 2 with a couple class 3 moves at the top.

Finally topped out at 1:15pm. And, the summit views wayyy exceeded my expectations. For only a 5700’ peak, it felt much loftier with amazing 360 views of all the Mountain Loop peaks (and beyond) in every direction. Views of the entire upper ridge traverse were spectacular, and I found it to be a great perch for bear-watching.

Enjoyed the summit for an hour and a half before heading down. Before descending I scoped out the ridge route one last time and could see 2 bears at different areas near the trail in the direction I was headed. Definitely added a little spice & excitement to the trek back!

Along the way, I made sure the bears would hear me before they saw me, and most of the ridge traverse was uneventful until coming to the final meadow. There, a large black bear was staring at me, about 50 yards away, just off trail up slope. I stopped immediately, making noise, waving my arms, etc. Undeterred by my commotion, the bear proceeded to sit down in the blueberries, facing me directly, looking pretty unamused. Wasn’t expecting this, and got me kinda unnerved really. But, after about 5 minutes of this, the bear got up and sauntered into the trees. Whew.

The rest of the way back felt fairly benign compared to all the excitement on the ridge. It was good to get through the rocky sections of trail down low and back to the flats, finishing up just after 6pm. What a worthy peak, and an experience I won’t soon forget! 14.3 miles / 4,573’ gain