Poo Poo Point — Monday, Feb. 8, 1999

Issaquah Alps > Tiger Mountain

Getting there: Drive to the high point trailhead and park at the gate, exit 20. The trip: It was my initial intent to try and do the enitre TMT and back but difficult conditions (deep snow, hard to find trails etc.), made this impossible to do starting a little before 1:00 pm with no head lamp. The day began rain-free with some blue sky and a bit of clearing. I hit snow almost right away but it didn't get real deep until somwhere between 1,500 and 2,000 ft. There were no fresh foot prints on this enitre section until the TMT's crossing of the West Tiger 2 and 3 saddle, where there was a serious set of tracks heading up towards W. Tiger 2. From here I continued on the TMT to Manning's Reach in some serious deep powder for jogging shoes. I continued on the TMT until coming to the intersection of the trail to the Middle Tiger summit, I went a bit further to the five mile marker coming from hwy. 18 and then back tracked to the middle Tiger junction, it was getting late and I obviously wasn't going to make the entire traverse this day. So from this junction I descended down to the West Side Road and followed it some 3.5 miles up to Poo Poo Point (this road gets fairly steep after crossing the Grand Canyon trailhead). Once at Poo Poo the sun was beginning to set and I was freezing cold but it was nice to finally be on familiar trail! I now put on my wool hat, gloves and parka excited about the downhill. Even though it was dark I made great time to the Adventure trail where I followed it to the Brink trail and finally the Swamp trail for the final leg of my journey back to the gate around 6:30 pm after some 5.5 hours of running, snowshoeing, routefinding, freezing and plodding ever so slowly along! Take Care! See ya on the trail, Pilar.