Iron Bear

We drove out to the Teanaways to hike up to Iron Bear via the Iron Bear Creek Trail, a 6.5 mile round trip hike with 1,900 ft elevation gain. There was snow along the entire trail, but we did not need snowshoes nor micro spikes.
Near the trailhead was the largest creek crossing, we had no difficulty in crossing it.

We were pleasantly surprised to see blue skies at the begining of our hike.

We had fresh snow on the trail, and the only footprints from this morning ahead of us were critters. Lots of rabbit footprints and some deer.

Enjoying the sun in the morning.

We also saw some fresh small feline prints in the snow.

Up on the ridge, we joined the Teanaway Ridge Trail.

View along the Teanaway Ridge toward Iron Bear.

Looking back towards to the southwest, we could see Mt Rainier in the far distance.












zoom Mt Rainier, the clouds soon hid the mountain for the remainder of our hike.











Pano from the top of Iron Bear, it was pretty cloudy by the time we reached the top.

Lots of lovely snowy trees

There were still pearly everlasting in bloom, now covered in frost and snow.

Just below the top of Iron Bear, on our hike back down, we briefly saw Mount Stuart, which disappeared again in the clouds before we could get our cameras out.

As we continued our hike down, we watched the clouds move into the valleys, here to the east and













also to the south.














We also saw some very fresh feline prints on top of the boot prints we had made on our way up. We may not see much wildlife, but see the evidence of their activity.