We had hiked Mount Townsend earlier in the season (when the flowers were still in bloom)from the trail coming up from the southeast side. This ""backway"" route from the Little Quilcene trail is an interesting alternative, with its increasing more dramatic views out towards the Dungeness, Buckhorn Mountain and the Tubal Cain trail in the far distance. The main problem for us--as always--is the road. Those last four miles with a constant sheer dropoff makes for white knuckles and agraphobia. Each time we do this trail we say we'll never do it again because of that road. Others, obviously, don't have that difficulty. Although we had the only car at the trailhead when we arrived, when he returned, there were three, including a large van (and somehow had signed the trail register with ""9"" hikers). The trail is steep for the first .9 of a mile through an old clearcut and then dense second growth forest and then it turns right for a long traverse sometimes level and sometimes steeply up and down until it reaches the Mount Townsend trail (signed)at about two miles. We climbed up to the north summit in another mile and a third. It's a shorter and less strenuous climb than the more popular route. There were so many flies at the summit that we decided to descend a bit to have our lunch. We had seen a side trail on our way up, about ten minutes from the top, and decided to take it. It led to a great view on a smaller ""summit"", underneath the north summit (you can actually climb down from the north summit to it). On our return, we turned left at the trail junction and continued on the Little Quilcene trail for a while to look at Dirty Face Ridge. This gave us an interesting view down to the road to Tubal Cain. We could even see a car parked at the trailhead of the Silver Lakes Way Trail thousands of feet below us. This all added only about a half-hour to our hike and was well worth it. Walking along the ridge is fun and gives you further views of Mt. Townsend's summits. In all, a wonderful hike. But then--the drive down that awful road! Ice cream in Quilcene was a good antidote.

Pasted together some trails to make for a varied and more strenuous dayhike. Parked at the end of road 2820 and proceeded on the trail approaching Mt. Townsend from the north. After reaching the cloudy summit followed the Silver Lake trail to it's destination and enjoyed a break in the mist around the lake. Backtracked to Silver Creek and found the way trail that was quite well-treaded but not graded. This is a pretty section of mossy, emerald woods. It terminated at a clear cut so we proceeded downhill on the road briefly until finding the sign to the Little Quilcene trail. This trail was steep until reaching Dirty Face ridge, a lonely stretch with interesting rock formations and cloudy views across and up the opposite valleys. This trail re-joined the Mt. Townsend trailhead and took us back to the car. Nice hike for variety: about 15 miles including meadowy mountain top, alpine lake, mossy forest.

Wildflower Alert! Flowers blanket the trail from the start of the avalanche chutes, sometimes waist-high. Identified 64 different varieties and know we missed some. Mixed masses on the lower hillsides, large clumps of bluebells, columbine, paintbrush, nodding onion, and many more as you get higher. Piper's Bellflower still opening up at the saddle where the trail to Silver Lake starts, so it's not too late to enjoy this visual feast.

We weren't in a hurry, which was a good thing, because the ferries to the Olympics.....well!! Left Seattle at 1 PM on Friday and the I-5 traffic was already astounding, as was the long, slow, hot line in the sunshine at the Edmonds Ferry. The plan was to hike first up to Windy Camp for one night, and it took us until nearly 730 PM to get there due to the traffic snafu. Several other groups there, a few patters of rain in the night (despite this hot sunny weekend) after we'd answered the recurring silly question ""shall we put up the rainfly"" by remembering we were in the N.W. Left the lake gratefully as 42 boyscouts descended. The remaining short hike to the top of Mt. Townsend is spectacular in riots of wildflowers. What a show. Heard, but saw no marmots. Camped on top - an annual tradition. We never carry enough water because it's always hotter and drier than you remember. The smog was disheartening and we could barely make out Seattle's lights. Only the top of Rainier floated faintly above it all. Until the next morning when we had the full panorama from Baker to Helens, then back into the Olympics, and across the Strait to Vancouver Island and the San Juans. What a view. Took the Bainbridge ferry home - a much better choice. All told, it's a short hike - about 4 miles to the pass at the top, and a little more to the old lookout point, with 3000 feet elevation gain. The flowers can't be beat. Bugs at the lake, but not lethal. Didn't even use DEET, but did take out my trusty mosquito hat, and even brought out the silly-looking mosquito net jacket to howls of laughter. You can't read through the darned thing!! I'm still taking it to Image Lake after reading Bugboy's report.

Left my lonely car (only one) at trailhead at 10am in cloud and cool, compared to the last few days. Trail in excellent shape. Arrived at top at noon to great views to the interior of the Olympics, but hazy views of the Straights and east over Puget Sound. All the big volcanos in view - Baker to Rainier. Very few bugs; none of the biting kind. Only a couple of logs across trail that were easy to negotiate. After the few couple of small creek crossings the trail is dry. Unless seen from above, the tarns at Windy Camp take some effort to locate. Great mid-week trip!