Cool misty fall hike on Saturday the 22nd. The trail is in great shape all the way to the summit with a few small and easily managed blowdowns (only one that requires briefly leaving the trail). Good conditioning hike!

What's new: mushrooms are popping up and the fall foliage is starting to show.

What's the same: The trail signage is poor. The parking lot and trail had plenty of space even though it was a sunny weekend day. Most of the hike is a steady climb through healthy forest. The views don't come until near the summit. A few sections of trail are overgrown. This is most significant after a rain or a heavy dew overnight. (I wish I had brought a cutlass.) Long sections of the trail are very rocky. Like most of the hikes leading away from I-90, there is the hum of highway noise for the first couple of miles.

We knew we were going to start "late" (at least for us) due to an event the previous evening, so we decided to do a trail that is less traveled.

Started at the Ollalie State Park near Hall Creek and headed up the trail to Palouse before joining up with Change Creek. This trail is considered "not maintained," but it is in reasonable shape. The first mile is really steep as you follow switchbacks up the mountain. Once you hit Hall Point, the trail flattens out a bit, BUT it also gets really brushy. So if you come wearing shorts, you will leave scratched and bleeding.

After about another mile of walking through devil's club, berry bushes, and random other thorny plants, you will end up on NF-350, where you can take this to the short unmarked trail to Change Peak. 

After a short break at the summit headed back down. Decided to hide from the sun and go the "back way" back with hopes for a more shaded path and less brush. 

We turned off NF-350, where it makes a hard turn and connects with the "Great Wall" trail (per Gaia, but unnamed on many other maps) to connect to the Mt Washington trail. This route was WAY less brushy, and we were able to move quickly.

Made it back to the Palouse trail and then took the Deception Crags trail back to the Ollalie State park.

Overall: 11.19 miles, 3,356 ft vertical, 4:48:50 total time including breaks and too many scratches to count.

Great hike, parts were a bit overgrown and the signage wasn’t great.

There is a dead mountain goat on the trail about a half mile from the top, don’t forget your bear mace like I did (yikes).

LOST & FOUND: (1) We grabbed the green, long-sleeved shirt mentioned in the last couple of Trip Reports. It’s in Seattle now and closer to its owner. (2) We also found a gray tank top, size medium. (3) To the person who dropped all those pistachio shells at the lunch boulder with the view of Mount Rainier, I picked all of them up for you.

BERRIES: Bring a container! Blueberries, salmonberries, thimbleberries.

“OBSTACLE:” The dead mountain goat is still right on the trail, within half a mile of the top. It is bloated now and fairly grizzly. If you have a dog, be ready for that encounter.

We are very curious about this odd situation. We found it odd to see a mountain goat in this area. It’s odd that it died and is right on the trail. If a large cat got it, we would have expected that predator to drag this meal somewhere more private. It’s also odd that we saw no animals taking advantage of this free meal.

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