Mount Washington — Friday, Jan. 9, 2026

Our party of four, plus one more who joined us partway up, headed out to Mount Washington on a sunny Friday. We were hoping to also do a loop around/over Change Peak, but our not-very-early start and the slow trail-breaking up top meant we only had time to do Mount Washington.

TRAILHEAD : No issues. The sign at the gate says it will be closed at dusk, though there were still several cars in the lot when I left at almost 5:00, and no sign of anyone coming to close it. The bathroom is clean and stocked! The Palouse-to-Cascades Trail is closed west of the Mount Washington Trail due to the slide from last month.

PEOPLE: We came across one other snowshoer who helped us break trail to the summit (thanks!), plus two more hikers who made it to the summit, plus two hikers who turned around at the Ollalie Trail, and one hiker who was going up as we were coming down. So about 11 people on the mountain today, nice.

TRAIL: The lower trail is rocky as usual. There are maybe half a dozen blowdowns on the trail below 3000'. All of them are pretty easy to get around, or have a reasonable detour. If one were so inclined, a medium-size trail saw (16") could probably take care of most of them. There is water on the trail just above the Great Wall junction, but this is not unusual, and it's easy to cross right now. Not much water at all on the trail in the basin at 3200', but that is probably the worst section in terms of branches and other brush crowding or on top of the trail. It's better now than when we got there, so that's something! There are more annoying sections a bit higher where it's hard to find the trail under the snow and bent branches, but the snowshoes help. Another foot or two of snow would help even more.  :)

SNOW: No snow at the bottom - it starts in earnest at about 3000'. About 2-3' of snow at the top. I HIGHLY recommend snowshoes right now - we had to break new trail from about 3500' up in heavy, wet snow. If you go without snowshoes, you are going to be post-holing the last mile of the trail, which tears up the route for other users. Five people with snowshoes made it to the top today, so we laid in a decent track, but it is not yet packed down enough to support booted travel above the Ollalie Trail junction at about 3400'.

We didn't see any avalanche warning signs anywhere - the slopes to look out for are at about 3200' and 3700'. There wasn't enough snow in the lower area to be of concern. Tons of snow bombs were falling from the trees all day, so the rain jackets were needed even though it was a sunny day.

The heavy snow had weighed branches down across the trail in dozens of places. Fortunately, we were able to clear most of them as we laid in our track, so it should be much better now until the next big storm.

For those heading to Change Peak, Ollalie Trail, or Great Wall Trail, know that there is no track laid in on any of those routes, so you can expect to need snowshoes and to be breaking trail the whole way. Same thing with the steep and sketchy trail up the north ridge. The snow at the lower part of Great Wall is not super deep, so you might get away without the snowshoes if you are just going up a short ways to check out the wall.