Ray, Mike and I encountered no snow until the last half mile, and then only traces. The big adventure for today in occasional snow and wind gusts, was a technical assault on the haystack. The domain of carefree scramblers in the summer, it becomes a difficult climb when layered in ice and snow. To make a long (pointless') story short, we reached the saddle just below the summit, before work concerns brought us back to the city. The climb protected decently with small trees and the occasional root. Nice step kicking mixed with icy rock moves characterized the ascent. 2 rappels brought us safely down. For novelty seekers only. ps - Camp Robbers are out in force, swooping to steal your cookies!

Surprised by NO rain after driving through some light stuff leaving Seattle. Just a bit after Snag Flats it was flurrying very lightly. It continued flurrying the rest of the way up and down till short of returning to the car where rain was light. No snow on trail until just around mile 3. Got a bit slippery just as one emerges from the forest. It was awfully pretty up there even without any sunshine. Trees and trail lightly flocked with sugar snow. A good day out.

Just a quick note: The Si trail, like other popular winter conditioning hikes, e.g., Tiger and Mailbox, becomes slicker than deer guts on a doorknob as happy hikers compact even light snow into ice as trecherous as any late season glacier. Recommend at least ski poles and, much better yet, insteps or even real crampons, and knowledge of their use. Yeah, it looks silly, but ice is ice and even minor injuries can mean major down time. Wishing you upright hiking, Jonathan

You know you have problems when you begin slipping on the ice in the Mt Si parking lot. Actually, the trail conditions improved where there was less sky exposure and less snow on the ground. Nonetheless, I turned somewhere below Snag Flats where the narrower trail and steeper sidehill made avoiding a nice thin but very slippery layer of compact snow (more like water ice) made conditions very uncomfortable. Others had already turned around. I'm sure some made it but I decided not to risk it. Heading down, drizzle began adding a bit of moisture to the ice. Instep crampons are recommended till conditions improve and then near the top, they can be very helpful. Seattle was blue sky and biking riding ended the day! ICE on trail LOW DOWN.

The guys from SAFECO did their annual Day-after-Thanksgiving Work-off-the-Turkey hike of Mt Si. This is our 5th year of doing this and I have to say this year by far we saw the least amount of snow compared to past years. There are a few small patches of snow and ice just past the 3.5 mile marker but nothing too bad. The top just had patches of snow, nothing like the last couple of years. The rest of the trail is in very good shape, very little standing water and no blowdowns. Happy Thanksgiving to all! SR