My wife and I went on a hiking to Kachess Ridge Beacon near Easton. The weather was partly cloudy. We arrived at the trailhead at 9:50. We started hiking at 10. At 10:45 we reached a fork in the trail. We took the left, which goes straight to the summit. The trail was one of the steepest we climbed. Soon Mt. Rainier emerged over the horizon. We reached the summit at 11:47. We had lunch below the beacon. We started our descent at 12:30 and took the less steep but longer route. The straight route was very steep and we thought it would be dangerous to go down. The longer trail was less steep but had very many blowdowns. Some downed trees were difficult to negotiate. We returned to our car at 2:24. We saw no one else on the trail.
