Tatoosh Peak offers view of Cascade Grandeur

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I crawled out of my sleeping bag Sunday morning and opened the door of my Outback — then hastily slammed it shut, my left side already damp. The weather, my girlfriend and hiking partner Mandy noted, was like being inside of a sneeze.

We’d planned to climb Tatoosh Peak and take in its sweeping views of Mount Rainier, the Cascades and the volcanoes to the south. In these conditions, we wouldn’t be seeing much beyond the drips coming down the bill of our ballcaps.

For now, we decided, we’d get coffee at the Mountain Goat in Packwood and see where the day took us. By the time we’d finished the drive down from Mount Rainier, a few hints of blue were poking through overhead, and the clouds were at least reserving their soggy slop for the high altitudes. 

Caffeinated and antsy, we headed into the national forest and took a dirt road up to the Tatoosh North Trailhead. The climb began steeply, with thick forest and a thicker mist hemming us in. Even amid the chilly conditions, I quickly shed layers, sweat mingling with the water I collected from the wet overgrowth crossing the trail.

After a couple miles of steady ascent, we came to a long ridgeline that wrapped along the inside of a massive bowl. We could see the trail tracing a thin line across the opposite slope as gray shrouds wafted up from the valley. A few patches of sunlight made brief cameos, then vanished. 

Having knocked out most of our climbing, we stayed along the ridge, enjoying the views of the surrounding slopes from the exposed trail. Craggy rocks rose overhead, and stands of trees thickened until they filled the valley below. 

We crossed a few snow patches, and rivulets of snowmelt ribboned their way down from on high, providing a soundtrack of rushing water. The advantage of hiking early in the season is that you get the trails to yourself. The drawback is that dry trail is no guarantee. We pulled out our crampons and ice axes for one particularly steep traverse, then picked our way over the snow to the inviting strip of dirt on the other side. 

From there, it was smooth sailing. A hidden marmot squealed from above as we approached, and a flushed grouse leapt, startled, from the foliage. On this day, we were the only human intruders this far up the trail. Vast fields of glacier lilies added their cheery yellow color to the verdant scene, along with beargrass and columbine. As increasingly more sun brightened the mountains, we were grateful we hadn’t let the foreboding morning weather deter us.



A side trail veered sharply upward, and we angled left to follow it to the summit. Climbing again, we followed the saddle straight up, the slopes falling away on either side. The trail, direct now, and pointing the way upward, marked a dividing line of sorts. To the left was the bowl we’d just spent the morning circuiting, its trees and grass and streams still in view. To our right, a precipitous slope of scree and snow dropped off into invisibility, with dense clouds walling off even the closest eastward features.

We made our way up the middle, over and around a few more snow patches, the whirling mists marking an eerily abrupt end to the otherwise commanding view. Some more steep climbing brought us to the summit, marked by a 1939 Forest Service marker that threatened a $250 fine for hikers who dared tamper with it. 

At 6,300 feet, we took in the jagged summits of the other Tatoosh Range peaks to the north. Mount Rainier, towering above all of them, remained hidden in the clouds. A still-frozen lake glowed blue in the snow almost directly below us. The ridgeline extended ahead of us under a snow-mantled cornice, sharp spires of rock protruding as it curved to the east.

As we ate lunch, basking in the sun, the nearby ridgeline clouds gradually abated, revealing the Goat Rocks and the cloud-masked base of Mount Adams to the south. The sharp summit of Mount Hood poked up in the distance, and some snowy lines disappearing into the clouds gave away the location of Mount St. Helens. 

The return hike was more glorious than the ascent, as the now-steady sunshine turned the slopes a brilliant emerald green, the wildflowers somehow even brighter. As we hit the main trail and turned back north, Mount Rainier appeared in fits and starts amid the east-moving clouds. As we sat down to put on crampons for the traverse, we lingered to watch the clouds give away the big mountain in different frames. 

A wrong turn forced us to backtrack half a mile, and a misbegotten attempt to reach Tatoosh Lakes was turned aside by steep snowfields. We didn’t mind. On an afternoon like this, a detour is nothing more than the scenic route. 

We split a beer back at the trailhead and changed out of our sweaty, still-moist clothes. My car was caked in dirt by the time we made it back to the road, and my face would be sporting a sunburn for a few days — signs of a weekend well spent.