I know a ton of people hike this but I thought I'd drop a quick note that this is a trail that is still snow free. The cable line is steep, took me just over an hour to get to West Tiger summit #3. Of course there is a more gradual trail, but longer, to this summit. I went back that way. Not much water or mud on trail, still in pretty good shape.

There is a fair amount of running water on the trail for the first 1/4 mile and the trail remains wet all the way to the summit. This is a great hike for a quick alternative to doing the stairmaster at the gym. We made the round trip in just under two hours keeping a slow and steady pace on the way up (1:10) and a brisk pace on the way down (:40)

I was just telling a buddy how strange it was not to have much snow this winter when, about two thirds of of the way up the Cable Line, I see the scene in the attached pic. It's more hail than snow, but it's all white stuff. I bet it's gone now, a day later, but you should still be prepared for mud and slippery conditions especially in the lower third. On the way down (I use West Tiger #3 when in descend) I remembered that I didn't pack my boot chains. They weren't necessary, but still, a reminder never to underestimate the weather.

The hike was ok up until the first false peak. The trail was real icy above that. While it was not a problem climbing up, coming down was hard and I slipped a couple of times and was thankfully stopped from sliding by my friend. We did not have YakTrax/Kahtoola or even poles. These are a must if you wish to climb this trail this week. Enjoy! There is a broken log halfway up the trail covering almost 75% of the trail width; It is loose and could roll down. Beware of that.

With a ""free day"" off due to no power at work, I decided to see what the storm had to to some of my favorite Tiger Mountain trails. I started up the Cable Line, turned off on the main Tiger Mountain Trail, took the K3 connector up 'til hitting the TMT again, then Tom's Crossing up to the top of West Tiger 2. Down the roads to the One-View trail, down to the Poo Poo Point junction, down Poo Poo to the Power Line road, and the Bus line trail back to the parking lot road. In short - quite a mess ! But not everywhere, some sections were nearly untouched. TMT from Cable line to Tom's Crossing (not including the loop the K3 trail cuts off) is in fairly good shape. Endless amounts of ""ankle biter"" debris - which would be a constant - but only a few larger blowdowns. At the NE corner of West 3 there is another good sized blowdown - too big for one guy with a camp saw - but I trimmed enough to make it an easy pass through. One or two step overs above that, plus lots and lots of moveable limbs, but generally no problems to passage. That went so well that I decided to go down One-View and Poo Poo Point - oops ! Should have realized that the SW winds would have hammered that side. The One-View trail and the upper Poo Poo Point trail are now moderately clear. I cut out and/or moved everything I could handle, and trimmed around the larger stuff to allow easy step-over or -under. The big bridge over the southern-main creek in Many Creeks Valley took a pretty hard hit. A good sized fir fell into the creek and slammed into the west/downhill side of the bridge, near mid spam. I topped and branched the tree enough to clear the bridge deck. The main structure and deck seems to be undamaged, but several chunks of railing are gone and the tree is still leaning up against the structure. Below/north of that bridge things get messy. There are 5-6 major blowdowns across the PPP roadbed-trail. All can be worked around/through/over but it is interesting. At one spot, a large cedar tree has done a 180 flip and is now upside down in the trail. You can just push thru the cedar fronds like it was a curtain - pretty cool! The others are less fun, and one is a 5 foot high stack of trunks with up-and-over the best option. The Bus Line trail has 5 blowdowns across it. 4 are easy step-overs, but #5 is the champ of the day ! And of course, it is between the parking lot and the West Tiger 3 trail junction. It's a massive stack of huge trunks - maybe 6-8 feet high and wider than that. It is fairly easy to loop around and under the main trunks on the north side of the trail - to the right as you're heading in - but you have to look for it (tho maybe it'll look better in daylight-working thru by flashlight was fun !). Nice day, but I'm done hand-sawing trees for awhile.