Mount Townsend

We drove up to the Little Quilcene to hike up the north side of Mount Townsend today, 7.5 miles with 2.260 ft of overall gain. Most of the hike is up through the forest where we found wildflowers, berries and fungi, so fun to see what was along the trail. For how dry it has been we were suprised to see so many twinflowers in bloom.

I like seeing the lichen hanging off the trees as we continued up the trail

Of all the fungi we found along the trail, I was fascinated with the tooth fungi

As the trail climbed up and around to the west side of Mount Townsend we were rewarded with views of Olympic ridges and peaks above the clouds

We had lunch on top of Mount Townsend and enjoyed walking from one end of the top to the other. To the northwest we could see Mt Baker and Mt Shuksun (second photo is a zoom)

View to the northwest from the north peak of Mount Townsend

Views from the south peak (true summit) of Mt Townsend towards the southeast, we could see Mt Rainier and a very hazy Mt Adams and Mt St Helens

photo to the south before we turned around and returned back down the trail

some of the wildflowers, berries and fungi we saw along the trail today