Frog Mountain — Saturday, Sep. 9, 2023

We don't often hike off highway 2 on the weekends because of the horrendous home bound traffic but a sunny Saturday after Labor day was enough to tempt us up there.  Frog Mountain is a newish trail and a new trail to us so lots to explore.  The road in is a fair ways.  Beckler River road is paved but does come with a few serious areas of subsistence, and these will ambush you if the pink/orange road markings are hidden by sun and shadows.  The gravel forest road is wide, easy to travel, but a little dusty.  Thanks to the previous trip reports I was prepared at the five way (very large) intersection.  Some of the other roads are marked some not but once half way across the intersection we could see the small sign for FM which is also now sporting a colored ribbon.  There is a ditch forming across the short spur up to the parking so don't go banging into that in your low rider.  The parking lot is a decent size but gives off old burrow pit vibes.  About a half dozen cars when we arrived around ten and it felt really warm.

We geared up and after a quick review of the sign board set off.  Pretty soon there is Y junction and if you take the nicest looking tread to the left you might end up surprising someone using the back country toilet so definitely hang right there.  Then there are lots of little drainages to climb up and down a little annoying when trying to find a rhythm, but on the way down they announce you are nearly done.  The well moderated trail encourages overly fast hiking and I ended up feeling totally gassed after about an hour and had to take a big break.  I had been concerned over the reports of the wasp nest and had wanted to get beyond that as quickly as possible.  Taking the second half of the climb at a much slower pace we started to enjoy the opening views and after two hours arrived at the "end".  The trail ends in a large blueberry patch.  There are the amazing views mostly to the north and lots of little social trails with small places to sit.  We took a spot in the shade to cool off.  It's not a small area but with people sitting hidden by the bushes it can feel like you are crashing someone's picnic as you find your own spot.  Blueberries were present but they are not numerous and are well past best, fabulous colors made up for that.  Views were a little hazy and there is a smoky layer lower down in the valleys as you look toward a very gray Mount Glacier.  We actually could smell smoke at the trail head but purple air was still reporting green for the closest air monitors when I checked later. 

Heading back down we really enjoyed the soft tread and ridge views of that last half mile or so, lots of stopping to look forwards, backwards and outwards.  Colors are already peaking here.  The hike down still felt hot and it was low 80s back at the car, so this is a hike best done early in the day for sure.

So let's talk wasps for a minute as it was my main concern.  They seem to be really bad this year and we did see one or two in the parking lot and a couple more on the trail but we did not see "the nest" reported before even though I was checking every log on the way by.  There were also a few at the top but they weren't a bother, although little flies up there were a bit annoying.  So all good there.  Perhaps as this is not a busy trail they don't get as riled up as on others.

And now let's talk heat.  There is actually a fair amount of shade on this hike so I think the heat issue is more related to geography.  Frog Mountain is at the end of the ridge and drops down sharply on three sides, it seems the heat from the valley wafts up meaning once the sun is up no amount of shade is going to help you.  We had 2L of water each which was not too much.  We did see one dog but really this is a poor choice for them, as there is no water source on the trail at all.

Go now for the fall colors, or pencil this one in for late next spring when the surrounding mountains will still be showing off their white winter wear.

Notes:  If you don't want to brave the back country toilet there is an outhouse at the Skykomish ranger station on highway 2, just east of the Beckler River road junction, but an even better option is the decent looking out house I spotted on the drive out, at the entrance to the Beckler River campground.