Mount Rose Winter Hike & Snowshoe Washington

A beautiful sunny day in the end of February. We drove out to the Olympic Peninsula to go hiking. Looking across Hoods Canal we could see our destination: Mount Rose, the peak on the left of the range in this picture. The trailhead is 12 miles west of Hoodsport, WA.

The parking for the trailhead is across the road from Lake Cushman. The trail starts at 800 ft elevation.

It felt like a spring day.

The trailhead is a short walk from the parking lot, you cross two small streams over wooden bridges. There are small waterfalls as the streams cascade down the hill.

The trail up to the summit of Mount Rose is 3 miles and 3500 ft elevation gain (via the left summit route). There is a summit loop trail, but we did not see any tracks going around the summit, so we choose to hike up and back on the left summit route, which is shorter, but steeper.

This is a steep hike, at 1.1 miles and 1200 ft elevation gain, you enter the Mount Skokomish Wilderness. 0.7 miles further on, you'll have climbed an additional 1,050 ft as you reach the junction of the summit/ridge loop trail. Then there is an additional 1.1 miles of trail with an additional 1,250 ft of elevation gain to the summit.

 About 1/4 mile after the junction with the loop trail, the snow was deep enough that we needed to wear snowshoes.

 About 1/4 mile shy of the summit, we stopped at an open area in the sun to eat our lunch and enjoy the views to the south and east. Looking down at Lake Cushman, over the low hills to Hoods Canal, and in the distance we could see Mt Rainier, Adams & St Helens

 There were several gray jays trying to steal our lunch.

 The last 1/4 mile to the summit was steep.

The summit is a small rock cropping at 4300 ft elevation.

From the summit, we had views of the southern Olympics and

 the north end of Lake Cushman. The trees at the top of Mount Rose kept us from seeing the cascade mountains we had seen from the view point below.

 The return trip, descending the in the steep snow covered slopes, was almost as strenuous as the hike up.
This is a great conditioning hike.