Green Mountain loop (Middle Fork Snoqualmie)
Ian and I parked at the Mount Teneriffe Trailhead and rode our bikes up the CCC
Road-Trail to a ridge east of Green Mountain.
We followed the ridge to the summit, the ridge passes through at least
5 distinct different areas, oldish second growth, old growth, young
second growth, a rock field, and high-elevation ridge covered in old
growth (at least if I remember clearly it was old-growth). It was
very interesting going from the beautiful old growth to the young
second growth, the contrast between the two has never been brought
home to me so well. Near the top the ridge became very well defined,
at some places it was only 10 feet wide.
From the peak, we descended north to a logging road that followed the
ridge. The ridge was the prettiest part of the trip. The fireweed,
fox glove, and pearly everlastings were in full bloom. The clouds
blowing over the ridge from the west made the mountainside of stumps
mysterious and beautiful.
The logging road eventually dead-ended above a large, man-eating
boulder field. After descending the boulder field to another logging
road below it, we got off route, I only figured out that we were off route the
next day. (We were pretty frazzled and stupidly only consulted the
map that did not have the route written on it, from now on all my maps will have
the route on them.) Instead of following the logging road to a ridge
and descending the ridge, we continued straight on down and through
about 600 vertical feet of devils club. Ouch! This was right around
sunset.
The rest of the hike down the Bessemer Road-Trail then the CCC
Road-Trail back to our bikes was uneventful but dark. Good thing we
had our head lamps.
It took us over 12 hours. I'm not sure how much of the time was spent
descending the field of devil's club. Except for devil's club and the
hiking on the low elevation roads, we both thoroughly enjoyed all of
this hike.
Car-to-car:
12 hours 12 minutes
In:
Middle Fork Snoqualmie Drainage
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