With a Saturday to myself, decide to hike up to the East Peak of Rattlesnake Mtn., as I had not been up there in 7 years. The parking lots at the trail head were almost full when I arrived at 10:30 am. Lots of people out on this day enjoying the out of doors. After getting to the junction at the first ledge, I headed up and stopped at the middle ledge for a snack and take a couple of photos. Then up to the upper ledge for a look see, then continuing on up the ridge to the log landing where the trail is on a old logging road. This section is fairly flat to where the trail once again goes through the woods and connects to another logging road up a steep grade past a rock pit. This road meets another road with a new trail built through the forest, crosses a spur road and goes up the ridge of Rattlesanke Mtn. to the East Peak where the Wa. State Patrol radio tower is located by the red painted building. The upper two sections of the trail where not built the last time I was up here and are not shown on the my 2002 edition GT map for Rattlesnake Mtn., so I hiked on the logging roads at that time. A Boy Scout troop was up at the East Peak when I arrived. Met one young couple who had hiked all the way up there with out a pack, food or water. After some lunch and view across the valley to Mt. Si, it was time to head back down. The upper parts of the trail were muddy due to the melting snow. There was one blown down tree to get over not to far from the East Peak.
Since most people only hike up the 2 miles Rattlesnake Ledge, I didn't expect to see very many hikers further up the trail. I did run into quite a few, around 30 others who where either going up to the East peak or were headed back down. Met one group of older hikers like myself heading back down after going all the way from Rattlesnake Lake to the Snoqualmie Point Trailhead, almost 12 miles round trip. The hike from the parking lot at the lake to the East Peak is about 8.5 miles with a 2,600' gain. I saw one hare on the upper section of the trail and it was the only wildlife I encountered.
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