Easton Ridge and Domerie Divide Trails

We drove out to the Kachess Ridge Trailhead near Easton to hike up another trail: Easton Ridge. We ended up turning around a little over 4,000 ft, because of the conditions. Headed back down where the trail splits with the Domerie Divide Trail and hiked up to a couple of viewpoints before turning around. About 5.5 miles round trip with 2,150 ft of overall gain. Although we saw about 6 cars in the parking area when we returned, we did not see any other hikers on the trail today.

For the Easton Ridge and Domerie Ridge Trails, there is no trailhead sign, make sure you take the trail to the right before the sign to Kachess Ridge.

Icicles and moss at the beginning of the trail.

The trail almost immediately crosses Silver Creek below this waterfall.

The trail then climbs about 1,100 ft in 1.4 miles to the split between Easton Ridge and Domerie Divide Trails. Here we began to get above the fog. Moon in the sky above.

After the trail split, we soon found only one set of footprints in the snow going up Easton Ridge. The snow was fairly hard packed, so we wore micro spikes.

Above the clouds on Easton Ridge, we went about 1/2 a mile and a bit over 600 ft of gain, before deciding we weren't comfortable with the slope and exposure.

We had great views above the cloud inversion.

zoom of Mt Rainier to the south

Mt Baldy to the north:

We returned down to the trail split and headed northeast along the Domerie Divide Trail for about 0.8 miles. There were more boot tracks here.

The trail is fairly flat for a ways and we found a great viewpoint to the southwest. Kachess Lake below the clouds, Mt Rainier to the far left and Kachess Ridge to the left:

The trail continues through the forest, as we gained elevation, we would have occasional view of Mt Rainier to the southwest.

After a steep ridge climb, the "trail" levels out in a sun exposed area before steeply climbing up to the divide with the Mount Baldy Trail. We stopped here, about 4,025', and had a lunch break. Nice view of Mt Rainier to the southwest.

We then hiked back down the trail, stopping to enjoy the view overlooking Kachess Lake, now that the cloud layer had gone.

Pano from this same spot:

As we hiked back down the switchbacks, we were happy to see some views of Kachess Lake, which had been hidden in the clouds on our hike up.