Banshee Peak — Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023

Early bird Banshee Peak hike, at the trail head at 6:30am. We got the last available parking spot in the small parking lot, but there was plenty of space for other cars on the side of the road. Nice weather, just wore a wind breaker but warmed up quick enough to take it off (I kept it on though). Trail is kept well, up to Panhandle Gap. Once you reach Panhandle Gap it's hard to know which way to go to reach Banshee Peak, there are like 5 different trails to choose from. As you're coming from the trail, straight ahead of you is the trail that will take you to "Twin Peaks", I think that's what it's called. To the left of that is the Summerland trail, you'll see that this trail descends a bit, and it looks quite flat. To the left of that is the trail you want to take to Banshee Peak. The left most trail takes you to the peak right on the side of the trail, and there's nowhere else to go from there. You'll see that the Banshee Peak trail is identifiable, but after a few miles you just can't make out the trail anymore. Be very careful, we were close to the cliff, if you slide you'll end up getting hurt or worst. This is what the WTA descriptions is talking about, there really is no trail to Banshee Peak. Today was a bit smoky, but not too bad. Once we reached the peak (10:26am, my Garmin showed 7.56 miles), it was cold! We rested from 10:26am until 11:23am, then headed back down. There were plenty of people going to the Panhandle Gap, it was nice weather despite the smoke. Reached the trail head at 2:19pm. Had some very nice views of Mount Rainier, some pretty flowers as well.