I started my hike up Mt. Townsend on the Little Quilcene Trail from the snowfree 2860 road. The trail is in great shape to the 4600' level where I started to cross small skiffs of snow. At the southern end of Dirty Face Ridge snow covered the trail in most places and continued, as I transitioned onto the Mt. Townsend Trail, up to four feet deep as seen in moats around trees. A short distance further along, the trail gains a more southerly exposure and from here the way became either wind scoured of snow or covered with wind compacted snow. Almost three hours to the top with very little postholing on the way up. Minor snowin' and blowin' at the summit with storm clouds moving in and out and looking wonderfully nasty over The Needles. Descent took two and a half hours with a bit more postholing, but snowshoes would have been much more trouble than worthy.

Started at the upper East trailhead, which you get to by driving up FS 27 making left where it says dead end ahead, (its about 1 mi down this rd)and located in sharp s-turn right before rd turns to dirt at about 3500 ft. We were the only people on the trail all day. Trailhead at about 3500 ft. Within 1/2 mi there was a couple inches of new snow; it got progressively deeper, there was about 8-12 inches on top. Never used snowshoes or even 4pt crampons. When one starts up the trail is easy to follow until you get to an open area. Travel across this field for 200yd/or so, then be sure to turn right and switchback up the field more, you will soon see the trail again. Our ""leader"" did not see the turn, and started climbing more steeply and realized they were wrong. The trail has a great, moderate, steady grade/angle, maybe 10% all way up. We were able to follow trail most of the way. One can switchback up and up to Windy Camp, we found a sign pointing ""trail"" to the right. (Theres another trail to the left to a lake (?Silver), do not go left. We came across more meadows and headed straight up on the snow, cutting across the trail. There was another trail junction where we again headed right. At 5600 ft the snow was partially melted off the trail. We hiked up a wide ""gully"" to a low point on the ridge, turned right and headed up to the summit. There were a few places where the snow was windblown and hard packed, and couple of icy spots, but this could be all avoided. There was a lot of bare rock. Sometimes we went through drifts that were up to our knees. 3.5hr up (4mi up) and 2.25 down. Had several relatively short nice glissades on the way down thru the new snow. We had a wide variety of weather: mist, clouds, than the sun came out right when we got to the summit. Had a great 20 min lunch stop out of the wind and in the sun. Got a few glimpses of surrounding peaks. No distant views of Sound or Seattle. The Olympics are a great place to go in the ""off season"". It feels so ""peaceful"" there.

Second over 6,000 foot peak in two days. Spent the night before on top of Winchester near Mt. Baker and then looked at the range from accross the water. My god, how the lights have grown in number since the days of my youth. The megalopolis along the waters edge is astounding. Lots of humans! Hiked up in the full moon. Didn't need a flashlight to set up tent. Felt like someone had turned on the stadium lights when the equinox full moon rose. Ain't nature grand!

This hike to the top of Mount Townsend from the backside is an interesting hike in its own right. You take the Little Quilcene River Trail from Road 9820, four miles from its intersection with #98. We were suprised to find three other cars at the trailhead and that led us to believe that we would see lots of people at the top who would have come up on the main trail. The trail starts out in a clearcut that is gradually beginning to look a bit better as more plants are springing up. The trail continues up steeply until Little River Summit at .9 mile and then traverses with ups and downs until it reaches the junction with the Mount Townsend trail at 1.9 miles. The trail passes through lovely forest which includes Lodgepole pines and the views open up of the Silver Creek drainage and Buckhorn Mountain, Iron Mountain, etc. Since it was cloudy, the tops of the higher peaks were obscurred. We went first to the north summit of Mt. Townsend, but it had become so windy that we decided to try to South summit in case it might calm down a bit while we were walking. It's about a half mile to the South summit. We had seen two parties on their way down and saw no-one at the top. We seemed to be the only people on Mount Townsend! After eating lunch huddled against the wind on the South summit, we headed back down. This is a shorter trip than the main trail--about 7 miles round-trip including the two summits, and only 2000 feet of elevation gain.

This is a must do trail if you love spectacular views of mountains, Puget Sound, the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Puget-City. The weather was great with temperatures in the mid 80’s and dry. There is no water on this trail so carry everything you will need (I had 3 quarts and used all of it during the ascent and decent). I drove to the upper parking (FS 27 to FS 190) lot saving about 5 miles of hiking and only requiring an extra 10 minutes of driving. FS 190 is about 1 mile beyond the official trail head and not signed beyond a warnings of a dead end and Forest Pass required. It is located to the south when traveling FS 27. The trail is in excellent condition, well graded and easy to follow. I did not encounter many bugs – likely due to lack of water sources and strong breeze on the summit. The round trip took about 5 hours including a 30 minute lunch and photo break on the summit. What impressed me most were the super views of Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan De Fuca! The entire Sound can be seen along with major volcanoes, Seattle and towns on the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas. This is hike rates five stars in my book!