Tatoosh Ridge

Jay Adventure!, Day Hiking, Mount Rainier , , , , , 0 Comment

This hike was sort of last minute I did with my friend Cheryl. I had read reports and heard from a few friends that the Tatoosh Ridge was an excellent trail to hike, so the time came to see what all the hubbub was about. It all boiled down to two words. Dramatic views.

We didn't hike the entire trail because I thought I had heard that it was in bad shape. We only brought one car and did an out and back. The trail was in much better shape than I anticipated. Round trip we only hiked about 7.5 miles which was a shame because getting up to the ridge is the hard part and that was already behind us. I remember both of us being really tired after getting up there so we didn't go farther. I will definitely be back to do the whole thing and maybe even do an overnight up there. I can imagine watching the sunset up there would be out of this world.

Trailhead kiosk
The town of Packwood is just south of the southern trailhead.
Entering the Wilderness
The views start to open up.
I love meadows like this
Mt Saint Helens can just barely be made out in the distance
Panorama using the two images above
When you turn around on the trail, Rainier looms above all in the distance
Rainier
We left the main trail thinking we were headed up to where the former Tatoosh lookout used to be but we were not on the correct side trail. If you look at the picture I took of the map on the kiosk, I thought we were on the trail labeled as 161A. We were actually still quite a ways from that trail. This is looking down the steep side trail as Cheryl made her way up. You can see Mt Adams in the distance and the town of Packwood glimmered in the valley below.
Panorama
An even wider panorama. The green mountain across the way is the actual part of the Tatoosh ridge where the former lookout stood. Side trail 161A goes up that.
Rainier from our lunch spot.
This helicopter flew over. We figured it might have been on a search and rescue mission on the Mountain.
This helicopter flew over. We figured it might have been on a search and rescue mission on the Mountain.
Another shot of Rainier from the meadow on our return.
You could see the weather starting to change. The Mountain sometimes makes its own weather. Sometimes when the barometric pressure changes, you'll see clouds form around the Mountain. It can be a good indicator of a system moving in.
Such a beautiful Mountain.
There is a side trail that goes up and over the ridge to the Tatoosh Lakes. We weren't willing to go all the way down to the lakes but we did hike up to the saddle. Here I zoomed in on Mt Saint Helens.
Another one from the lakes side trail. This one looking towards Rainier. Oddly enough, we hiked up here to get a view of the lakes but you couldn't see them from up here.
Being such a dry year, there wasn't much in the way of flowers, but there was some color if you knew where to look for it
Tatoosh Lakes junction
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