Mount Si: A Guest Post By Adam

Adam has been awesome about watching Claire for the day every once a while, so I can do things like get my hair cut, do some shopping, and even meet Jennifer Fulwiler at a vocations conference. I was happy to finally return the favor last weekend. Adam and one of his co-workers climbed Mount Si, a peak at the foot of the Cascades. It's near Snoqualmie, a cute little town half an hour east of us. The picture below is from a Snoqualmie trip last summer:

Yep, he climbed all the way to the top of that! And he took so many amazing pictures that I begged him to do a guest post on here. Seriously, these pictures almost make me wish that I had hiked it too. Okay, turning things over to Adam now!

   My coworker and I arrived at the base around 8:15 and started hiking up. It was about 40 degrees, so I had brought my winter coat. It turns out that was a mistake; the climbing made me pretty warm, and about twenty minutes into our hike I took it off.

     It was pretty foggy when we started, but the trees were very beautiful. Washington definitely deserves its moniker of The Evergreen State. Even in winter, everything seems green and lush.

     Here's a view of the path behind us. It was pretty steep going. The path just went up and up, a seemingly endless series of switchbacks. I calculated the average grade to be 14%, which is pretty dang steep.

     As we climbed higher, frost started appearing on the leaves of the trees. This was probably about a mile into our hike.

     This tree had a little plaque at the bottom explaining how it had survived both a forest fire and logging over its 350 year life. It was over a 100 feet tall, although it was hard to see the top.

     At around 2500 feet, more and more snow showed up. It was fascinating to see the changes in climate as we climbed. Mount Si is 4100 feet high at its peak, and our hike involved 3000 feet of elevation gain over four miles. 

    Close to the top, we entered full Winter Wonderland mode. The snow was around three feet deep, although the path was well packed down. We had to be careful here, as it was still very sleep and quite slippery. It would have been nice to have hiking poles like many of the other hikers we saw had.

    Here's an artsy shot to show all the snow on a branch. Even with all the snow around, I didn't put my coat on. The steep climb still left me sweaty!

     At last we made it to the top! Here was our magnificent view. A little foggy, wouldn't you say? Apparently on nice days you can see all the way to Puget Sound, over twenty miles away. Today, we could barely see the trees that were fifty feet away. However, the peak does boast another cool feature:

    Birds! They are called Camp Robbers, or Gray Jays, apparently. They would eat out of your hand. I think birds are fascinating, so I was pretty excited about this.

     Another set of hikers took a picture of my intrepid hiking partner, Brendan, and myself. 

    Here's a picture of the peak. You can climb a little bit higher, but since it was so snowy and there weren't any good views to be had on account of the fog, we decided to head back down instead. At the top where it was snowy, it was steep enough that it was easier to just run down rather than try to control your pace. It was exciting! I only almost fell off the mountain once.

     When we got to the bottom again, the fog had cleared up somewhat. All of the trees were extremely mossy, as you can see. Brendan and I were very tired after our eight mile hike. I had a great time, and I definitely want to head back in the summer to see the amazing views sans fog.