Arrived at the parking lot at 11 AM on a cool/overcast typical spring day in Seattle. Waited for 10 minutes to get a spot due to weekend rush. Watch out for the pot holes around the parking lot especially for low clearance sedans as witnessed a few bottoms get scraped. Started the ascent at 11:15 and reached the summit at 1:15. Plenty of birds and chipmunks to see at the top. It was quite foggy near the haystack and it started snowing when we were having our snacks (carrying a rain jacket paid off). Hurried back to the parking but the weather cleared up around the flats. Overall the GPS clocked 3300 ft elevation gain and 8.2 miles round-trip. A Saturday well spent. 

BASICS

• Perfect weather FRI, 0800: 18 cars in parking lot
• Bathrooms clean and toilet paper stocks (that you effective government)
• Trail clear and clean all the way up.
• By 1:00PM there were 45 cars in lot - still plenty of room for more.
• Lots of folks heading up later morning with heavy packs in training for some great ascent.
• By 0900 in the shaded lower sections, the first mosquitos were out.  Bring your bug spray for the bottom and your sun block for the top.
• And with the warm weather comes tic season - use your favorite bug repellent around your legs and check yourself in all those hidden parts when you get home at night.  (I have personal knowledge of a WA stater getting a life threatening, neurological impairing infection from a WA tic).

HELP the PARK:

• Please look at the blue poster on the bulletin board just past the restrooms.  It asks everyone to text a UW number to answer 4 questions about what you see at that moment regarding parking and trail capacity.  It takes about 15 seconds.
• Responding to this will help the state and WTA allocate scarce resources where they are most needed.  (see photo of the sign).

SOCIAL

• Dogs on leashes are allowed on trail.  Unfortunately the majority of owners feel they are special and don't need to leash their dog.  Two of them leave poop bags - which were not picked up 4 hours later.  Hmmm.  As a fellow dog owner - you folks are giving us a bad reputation.

IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T DONE MT. SI BEFORE:

• This isn't my favorite hike. It's basically up, up, up.  There are really only two brief flat sections -- each with a nice bench to rest on. The view at the top are some of the best w/in 1-hour of downtown.  But it's 3,200 hard slog feet up with basically nothing to look at on the way.
• But it is great for "put your head down and churn it out" conditioning.

Did a loop hike today- Mt Si trail to Si -Teneriffe Connector to Teneriffe trail to Roaring Creek back to the Mt Si trail. This route will add about 2 miles over the out and back trail.

Afternoon hike at Mount Si Trail on AllTrails
https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/afternoon-hike-at-mount-si-trail-288cc0f?p=-1&sh=przwcr&utm_medium=map_share&utm_source=alltrails_virality

Beautiful day up at Mt. Si. Training for Rainier and made it to the top in an hour 40 with 55 pounds in my pack. Very busy, but hey that's Seattle for ya!

Hiked up, Ran down. phenomenal view. Mount Si will be hiked again.

2:37:40

20:18