Dirty Harry's Peak and the Birdhouse Trail
Carla, Jiri, and I dared the "road closed by 4 PM" sign and parked
right at the start of the Dirty Harry's logging road-trail. We
started in rain, but by the time we were at 4,000' we were wading
through 2+ feet of snow and had to stop regularly to knock snow off of
trees that bent down across the trail.
From the summit of Dirty Harry's Peak we had planned to continue NW to
the 4,926' high point between Mailbox Peak and Dirty Harry's. But we
soon encountered a drop off on the ridge that all members of the party
were not enthusiastic about descending.
On the way back we stopped off at Dirty Harry's Balcony then took the
Birdhouse Trail down. The Birdhouse Trail forks SW off of the trail
to the balcony, it passes through a logged-out forest that is too
young to have much undergrowth yet. I've never seen so many stumps of
trees that were obviously young when they were harvested, was that
Dirty Harry's work? The trail is used to access a number of sport
climbing areas, and has many viewpoints that overlook I-90. It also
has six bird houses.
The trail took us to the bridge over the South Fork Snoqualmie. A one
mile walk back up the road led us back to our car. The next time I go
up Dirty Harry's I may prefer to park at the 4 PM gate and hike the
extra distance on the Birdhouse trail, it's much more pleasant than
the logging road, although it does have more ups and downs.
Elevation gain:
3,485 feet
In:
South Fork Snoqualmie Drainage
Car-to-car:
7 hours
-
3 hours 3 minutes
ascending
from
start of Dirty Harry's Logging Road-Trail
to
summit of Dirty Harry's Peak
-
1 hour
ascending
from
summit of Dirty Harry's Peak
to
summit of Dirty Harry's Peak
-
2 hours 57 minutes
descending
from
summit of Dirty Harry's Peak
to
start of Dirty Harry's Logging Road-Trail
Looking NW at Defiance Ridge from Dirty Harry's Peak
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