I didn't realize what a gem Dege Peak is. Today I wanted to see the sunrise from a mountain but didn't have as much energy as usual, so instead of Burroughs or Fremont, I headed up Dege (my first time). The panoramic view was something of a revelation and gave me a new perspective on many familiar sights. For example, from Dege the three Burroughs Mountains line up in a tidy row, like steps leading to Rainier. And it gives views of the lush parks between the nearby peaks, including a clear view of Grand Park.

I arrived well before sunrise and set up my camera on a tripod, intending to do a time-lapse view of the morning light hitting Rainier. But I messed that up, and also found it wasn't as interesting as the light playing on other geography I was seeing for the first time or from a new angle.

At the time of the sunrise, I was one of 6 people at the summit. Two had hiked from Sunrise Point. Another said she was there specifically to avoid the crowd at Mt. Fremont (though Dege can't accommodate nearly as many as Fremont, so it's good that not everybody made the same choice). She was also the first person I'd ever heard say the name "Dege." I always read it as "DEJ," but apparently it's "DEG-AY." Good to know!

 Hiked to 2^nd Burroughs this morning via the Sunrise Rim trail, with an added side trip to Dege Peak. Started at 6 AM and a brisk 44 degrees. The trail from Sunrise on the Rim trail is pretty much all downhill to Shadow Lake, then its all uphill to Burroughs 1 and 2. Lots of flowers along the trail to Shadow Lake, mainly Aster. The trail up to Burroughs 3 looks to be free of any snow patch crossings. From Burroughs 2, took the trail down to Frozen Lake and onto the Sourdough Ridge trail. Most of the foot traffic was on this portion. Eventually, the trail comes to a junction, with the right headed back down to the parking lot. I stayed on the left, going straight ahead 2 miles to Dege Peak. The number of hikers reduced drastically from here. Reached Dege and I had the summit all to myself. Headed back down and only ran into a handful of hikers. Back at the parking lot, it appeared to be almost full, with plenty of cars parked on the gravel side lot. Saw a large herd of mountain goats resting down in the valley between Fremont and Burroughs, but otherwise no critter sightings (except for a large group of Grouse that were just off trail heading to Burroughs 2). Back at the car by 11 AM. Really did not have any bugs to deal with. Total mileage for the hike was approximately 10.5 miles (4 miles total for the Dege Peak portion) and an elevation gain of 1400 feet. High points were Burroughs 2 at 7400’ and Dege Peak at 7000’. Another great day to be out at Mount Rainier!

Today we hiked out and back on Sourdough Ridge trail from Sunrise point parking area to the cutoff to Sunrise with a dogleg up to Dege Peak.  It was overcast skies and the cloud level lowered as we drove up through the White River Entrance Station.  Maintenance work was in progress to shore up the rock retaining wall around the parking area and along the Sunrise Park Rd on the hairpin turn.  Construction vehicles didn’t hamper parking in the lot.  It was 50 degrees so we all geared up with long sleeves, vests and gloves as we head up the trail just before 10:00.  In short time the sun kept pooping out and we all shed layers.  The entire trail was dry and dusty with loose rocks and roots on some of the steeper uphill sections.  Clearing skies over the Cascades and made for some great territorial view skies.  About 1/2 mile from the parking area there was a strong animal scent along the trail and there was a large area of matted down foliage adjacent to the trail.  A meadow rover further up the trail said there were a few reports of elk in the area. Wildflowers were mostly fading but we saw a bright spots of lupine, paint brush, aster, alpine goldenrod, harebells and lousewort.  Sweeping hillsides were covered with faded asters, arnica, pearly everlasting and anemone pasque flower heads, beautiful in their own right.  There were ripe blueberries and huckleberries throughout. I haven’t hiked on this section of Sourdough Ridge trail in years and was surprised by the continuous trail traffic the entire time we were out on the trail. When we backtracked and headed up Dege Peak trail traffic was thick.  There were over 30 hikers on the summit and it felt crowded.  Mt Rainier would appear out of the cloud shroud and just as quickly disappear.  Continuous territorial views were better NW towards Forest Lake and Grand Park and to Norse Peak and the Crystal Ski area.  South views did not extend past Tamanos Mtn and Govenor’s Ridge peaks.  We lucked out and spotted 2 mountain goats grazing below on the NE flanks of Dege Peak.  A few chipmunks and juncos rounded out our wildlife sightings.  Several more hikers were heading out when we walked back to our vehicles just after 2:00.  Another fantastic day out in nature with friends.

I tend to be verbose...
so quick version.

great conditions,
great views, lovely lake,
Tahoma partly visible.
pika party.
lots of purple flowers and fuzzy looking pasqueflower seeds.
watch out for animals in the road
see end for sunrise lot info.

 My initial plan had been to do owyhigh as it is less weather dependent but then my friend wasn't sure her back could make that. So we looked for a flatter option up in this area but at the last minute my friend ended up not going which left my choices open again. Forecast was either partly cloudy or partly sunny depending on which I used, highs up around 60.

 My plan was if it didn't look totally socked in to go all the way up to sunrise visitor center and do this one. As I encountered a mix of sun at the top of Chinook and could see decent visibility for lower elevations when turning into the park, I went all the way up.

 

 As I was still feeling pretty good after reaching the summit, I decided to continue on down the other side of the ridge to pullout corner (sunrise point lookout) and start down the Palisades lake trail. I was tentatively going to head as far as clover lake but ended up spending more time at sunrise lake since I had the place to myself and then went a little beyond the lake, but turned around since I knew I had at least 4 miles left for the return plus any walking around sunrise. Like other folks have noticed this trail is so much more lightly used compared to others in the area. I only passed one other group on trail until I got within about 2 and 1/2 mi of the visitor center on my return -plus a  few people at the sunrise point lookout corner parking area (I may or may not have laughed and tallied a point for gaia when a probable touron literally tripped sideways in his flip flops as he started climbing off trail... ) and one other couple from Georgia that were up on the peak waiting for Tahoma to clear before catching a flight home later (hope they made their flight!)  Tahoma was doing it's "I'm a high altitude mountain and weather is unpredictable Now you see me, now you don't" game. most of my clearish photos of the mountain were taken luckily up at Dege in the first portion of my hike, despite the fact it was overall cloudier earlier and my return hike was in basically all full sun. There is more shade approaching  the lake and part of the ridge closer to the sunrise point lookout corner vs visitor center side.

I left my house a little after 5:00, (only 4 hours after my natural summer time bedtime!)  and made it to the parking lot a little after 7:20 with a stop for gas and food in naches. (Shout out to the Sinclair gas station for having homemade breakfast burritos. camo coffee should  their hours because they are not open at 5:00. )  started up the trail about 7:30.

The trail was in great condition because it rained a couple days ago so it was not Dusty nor was it muddy. There are a few rocks along this trail, otherwise it's pretty much packed dirt with  slight inclines once you head up out of the parking area with only a little bit of incline up to the peak, especially from the sunrise visitor side (felt a bit steeper uphill coming from the lookout point).  Most of the trail is on the ridge line, which makes for just lines of peaks, steep drops, pockets of meadows, lakes in all directions as far as you can see. Even if this didn't have (hopefully visible , Tahoma up close) it would have All star views for nearly any other mountain hike. 

The hillsides are popping with purple aster and daisies as the primary flowers but there's also some lupine and anemone/ pasque flower seedheads, dandelions in bright yellow and some pockets of Indian paintbrush and several other purple/pink flowers along like fireweed, bells with some other Alpine smaller low moisture flowers  like grays lovage, hellebore, bisort, valerian and more I don't necessarily know names of. 

There were two elk right on the side of the road as we were driving up to the summit and I heard quite a few birds and saw some scat along the trail from at least a fox-sized animal. I happened upon a pika party down near the lake in the Rocky section where they were not too bothered with my presence running about being busy. When you see them move, you're really reminded they're related to bunnies - I heard them before I saw them but they were active both on my way down to the lake and return, seems like their general hangout. 

The only biting bugs I encountered were mosquitos down near the lake and I did put on spray since I'm a bug magnet, but they were far less than my last 4 mt hikes.  

Bees were resting(?) On my way out and then active as it had warmed on the way back. HUGE bumblebees Crawling!

The girls ahead of me near the start reported seeing a mt goat early on but I missed it. I was unsure if they meant near the trail or down across the ridge but I spent a chunk of time looking down the ridge at white spots to try and distinguish snow vs rock vs mountain goat. 

total distance was about 8.6 miles including one trip up to the top of Dege peak and both sides of the ridge and a just past the first lake (sunrise) on Palisades trail.

Other notes:

Parking lot was maybe 1/3ish full by 740. 

I appreciated the sinks with running water in the bathroom for putting my contacts in (my glasses work better for me in low light.)

I dislike the drive in the dark due to all the large -elk, deer, bighorn sheep, and small -coyotes, scamper critters etc  in/ near the road from Yakima area and it adds time but such is being there for early morning start! 

Googlesphere 360 image from the peak and pika video linked.

Happy #Hikeathon! Wow, I've never seen so many people at Sunrise Point at 6:30am on a Sunday! I came up on a Friday at 6:30am a few weeks ago and it was deserted compared to today! Our group of Mountaineers met at Sunrise Point to do a car shuttle  hike from there to Dege Peak, then along Sourdough Ridge to Frozen Lake, and back to the lodge. I could hardly pull into Sunrise Point because people were parked in front of the entrances. Myself and another hiker took my car up to the main parking area, where the entire paved lot was already full. I ended up parking in one of the last spots in the dirt overflow parking area. I felt bad for the people with 7am reservations - I suspect that the system is forcing people into coming early. 

Anyway, the hike! We completed a 6.3mi trek with 1100ft of elevation gain according to my Gaia tracker. We hiked up to Dege Peak from Sunrise Point, then took Soughdough Ridge to Frozen Lake. Our initial plan was to loop around using the service road, but we found a sign saying it was closed and would be another 2.7mi to the parking lot via Shadow Lake. So, we opted to turn around and backtrack. What a beautiful trail! It was much less busy from Dege Peak to the junction with the trail from the parking lot and we got some amazing views of Mt. Adams, Goat Rocks, Glacier Peak, and (we think) Mt. Baker. The only annoying part was dealing with the swarm of flies up at the summit of Dege Peak. Be sure to wear your bug spray if you go up there! They weren't really a problem otherwise. Unfortunately we didn't see much wildlife, just a chipmunk and we heard some marmots whistling. All in all it was a great day on Mt. Rainier!

If anyone feels inclined, you can support my Hike-a-Thon here: https://give.wta.org/fundraiser/6493127