Green Mountain — Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

It has been a while since writing a trip report, but I can assure you that I've been lurking around WTA and other websites reading your trip reports and planning my next excursion, so here's me giving back: Another exciting trip report BY ME on the Green Mountain Trail (very green). The day started with a dark and early wakeup call at 1:50AM when I hopped out of bed, ate a bowl of success, and jaunted merrily out the door with some extra pep in my step. In my head was that excellent song by the incredibly talented Selena Gomez and all I could think to myself was "Green Mountain, I want to look good for you". I drove 3 hours to Darrington, and after unbearable anticipation and excitement I reached the pleasantly wash-boarded road of the Suiattle River Road. Man I was stoked for miles and miles of wash-board, nothing beats a good spine jarring butt massage on the way to a hike. Finally at 4:50AM I reached the trailhead, ate one more handful of granola and success for energy, and rendezvoused with my wonderful hiking partner to begin the jaunt up to Green Mountain's summit. We were both super stoked to find out very quickly that, despite the weather being crystal clear at sea level, we had driven up into the center of a glorious, fluffy, marshmallow-like cloud. After quite some time the sun began rising and allowed us to rid ourselves of our head-spotlights. Still in the marshmallow cloud we began to wonder if we'd ever break out and get some SICK VIEWS. We very briefly got confused at a fork in the trail above a couple small ponds, and settled the dispute with a "You Got Served" style dance off. Fortunately, the winner of the dance off (You don't get to know who won, sorry) chose the correct route which was to the left, running along the right side of the small ponds. After passing the ponds, we began the climb up to the final summit ridge. Sun began piercing the marshmallow cloud, and we realized why Green Mountain was named Green Mountain. Our eyes were almost literally assaulted with how green everything was up there! Then they were almost assaulted again by some miniature dinosaur-birds. They seemed to prefer running up the trail rather than flying, it was quite absurd. Finally, we reached the summit ridge and my jaw almost dropped off the side. We had broke out of the clouds and had the most glorious view of Glacier Peak, and numerous other mountains that looked like ships sailing on a sea of clouds. I'll let the photos speak for themselves here. Overall, quite a stupendous trip. One last thing to note, on the way back down we spotted a large hornet/wasp nest literally right next to the trail probably about a mile and a half from the trailhead. Probably something to avoid, unless your one of those awesome folks who likes to carry a boombox in your backpack and listen to your music on full blast for everyone to enjoy. If you're one of those people, you should be a good hiker and go remove the hornets nest for us, and of course play that wonderful Selena Gomez song...