Tatoosh Ridge

We drove to the Tatoosh North Trailhead on FR 5270 in Gifford Pinchot National Forest to hike the Tatoosh Ridge Trail to Peak 6050. This was 6.7 miles round trip with 3,100 ft of gain. We were surprised to only see 3 other hikers on this beautiful trail today. The trail starts our climbing up through the forest and soon enters the Tatoosh Wilderness. 

This is a beautiful forest with several woodland wildflowers in bloom. 

As the trail climbs in elevation, it opens into a couple of meadows. Here we had a distant view of Mt St Helens over the far ridge.

 View of Tatoosh Ridge above us.

The trail climbs up in a series of short switchbacks in another meadow along a small stream, we found lots of pink monkeyflowers in bloom here

Some views of Mt Rainier to the north along Tatoosh Ridge.

Near the end of the ridge there is a small campsite with views to the south of Mt Adams, Mt Hood and Mt St Helens in the far distance and 

a lovely view of Mt Rainier to the north.

Lots of Mt Rainier paintbrush were in bloom in the meadow along this section of the ridge (with a distant view of High Rock).

Another view of Mt Rainier to the north.

Near the end of the ridge we found anemones and avalanche lilies in bloom.

At the end of the ridge, the trail heads east to Tatoosh Peak, we left the trail here and headed up the boot track to Peak 6050, view looking down along the boot track on Peak 6050.

View of Mt Rainier and Tatoosh Lakes from Peak 6050

Pano for Peak 6050 looking east to south: Tatoosh Peak, the Goat Rocks, Mt Adams, Mt Hood and Mt St Helens.

zoom of the Goat Rocks

zoom of Mt Adams

zoom of a very distant Mt Hood

zoom of Mt St Helens

There were many butterflies among the wildflowers:

 

We found lots of these butterflies sitting on the trail and had to be careful not to step on them.

some of the wildflowers we saw along the trail today: