All gates open to trailhead. All major road junctions and intersections are signed and trailhead is easy to find. Road is gravel from US 101 and accessible to any passenger vehicle. Four-wheel drive would come in handy as the road is at times steep and the gravel deep but certainly not required. Trailhead is marked with a kiosk. Trail easy to follow through the clear-but but strewn with branches. A few minor snow patches near the summit but nothing technical. The trail is easily negotiable but the underbrush is encroaching upon the tread a bit.

the road access trail to the trailhead is CLOSED due to logging by Pope and Talbot. info from the olympic national park in planning for an upcoming hike.

18. February 2006 / Mt Jupiter Attempt USGS Mt Jupiter, Brinnon If you follow the signs to the Mt. Jupiter Trail, you will pass through a gate and find yourself in a maze of logging roads. Ncho, Shagj and Bstyle spent two hours scouting logging roads for signs of the trailhead. We found loggers at the end of the last of these, who advised us, vaguely, to return to where we had started. That is: left at the first branch, left at the second branch, park at the third branch and head right, straight up the ridge, on a steep, rugged road with evidence of recent regrading. The direction would seem to agree with the map, but we all agreed that no average car could be expected to take that road; the truck stayed at the bottom. A thin layer of slick snow covered the road, imprinted with tracks from some type of vehicle- a mystery solved when the road ended in radio towers and solar panels, and, obviously, no trailhead. We walked through trees along the ridge, then cut down the east side sometime after passing the national forest boundary and found the trail about 200ft below. The snow was hard and crusted and we traveled most of the day without snowshoes. Due to the late start, we did not make the summit of Mt. Jupiter, but did enjoy views of Baker, Shuksan, Glacier, Rainier, Adams, Helens, Hood Canal, Puget Sound, Seattle and the Brothers. Some folks complained that they were itching to look into the heart of the Olympics, even though clearly that is not the type of view you want to hog down. We looked forward to finding the trailhead on our way out, and were initially dismayed to come out the trees into a pile of dirt and mess of broken wood. The trail was still there, and could be found under the debris by headlamp. A shame really, because it looked like a quality trail. After traversing the clear-cut several times, the trail became a ditch of a mud road that shortly dropped off an embankment into our original road, about 100yrds from the truck. We enjoyed the night view and a beverage, and all agreed that it had been a fine adventure. *If you leave after the loggers, you may have some difficulty passing the gate.

Called Quilcene ranger station re earlier report of Mt Jupiter road closure. Still closed and is expected to remain so through August.

We attempted to drive to the Mt. Jupiter trailhead, but were defeated by a locked gate on Mt. Jupiter road, approximately halfway between Highway 101 and the powerlines. There was signage indicating that the road is closed due to active logging. I guess they were not kidding. There did not appear to be another way to the trailhead from Mt. Jupiter road. It may be possible to reach the trailhead via logging roads accessed from the Dosewallips Road, though we did not find any alternate routes. We did find an alternate Olympic hike to satisfy us on this beautiful day!