Mount Townsend — Saturday, Jul. 13, 2002

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

My husband and I met up with some of our hiking friends and set off for Mt. Townsend on this cloudy/foggy Sunday morning. By the time we drove up to the trailhead, we'd broken through the cloud barrier and were in the morning sun. A perfect and cool morning for hiking up the steep 20% grade of this trail. The trail gets down to business right away and eases up only briefly in the middle where the beautiful views, meadows, and wildflowers begin in profusion. The trail is in wonderful condition, making the slow slog up the hill easier on the feet. Once we got past the Silver Lake fork and began the final steep ascent up the hill, the fog began to surround us. We couldn't see the top of the mountain at all until we finally got up there. Most of the people up on the mountain seemed to have decided they just couldn't go any further and plopped down all in one place to have lunch. We walked a few hundred feet further and found a nice lunch spot all by ourselves. The fog swirled and shifted giving us good glimpses of the mountains across from us, but never totally opened up. The trip back down flies by given the beautiful tread of the trail. We were at the trailhead again before we knew it and headed off the mountain for our well-deserved dinner.