Mt Townsend

Fabulous wildflower hike up to Mt Townsend. We wandered all around the top and then dropped down to part of the Silver Lakes Trail before returning. About 9 miles with 3,000 ft of gain.

Lovely to see the rhododendrons in bloom along the lower portion of the trail.

The first couple of miles of trail are in the forest, with lots of forest wildflowers in bloom, here starry false Solomon Seal and vanilla leaf.

As the trail went up the open slopes, we saw many alpine wildflowers, here paintbrush, meadow-rue and cow parsnip.

A waterfall on the upper right. Lots of penstemon in bloom along the trail.

View part way up the upper switchbacks, we saw Mt Baker, Glacier Peak and Mt Rainier. Later, Mt Shuksan and Mt Adams came into view, before the clouds rolled in.

patch of small-flowered penstemon, prairie smoke, strawberry,  and cinquefoil
















View of the northern Olympic Peaks from the saddle of Mt Townsend

I finally saw the benchmark atop Mt Townsend

















Pano from atop Mt Townsend looking west:

Pano from atop Mt Townsend looking east:

View from the north end of Mt Townsend, we could see into Canada

view form the north end of Mt Townsend looking southwest

Top of Mt Townsend was covered in phlox, and many other alpine wildflowers

phlox and douglasia

deer grazing on the side of Mt Townsend

Pano overlooking Tull Valley from the upper Silver Lakes trail

a boot track leads out to Welsh Peaks

some of the many wildflowers we saw in bloom today: