Mount Rose

 Drove out to the south end of Olympic National Forest to hike up Mount Rose in the Mount Skokomish Wilderness, 5.8 miles round trip with 3,500 ft of gain. I only saw 3 other hikers today and that was when I was more than 1/2 way back down the trail. 

Cascading creek at the bridge crossing near the beginning of the trail.

 There were many of these peas along the lower trail along with other wildflowers.

This trail is steep all the way up through the woods. There were several small creeks across and down the trail from snow melt. This stream was flowing over the log bridge.

There were several large snow fields around 3,800 ft  to cross. the snow was fairly well consolidated.

The steep section of the trail up to the top was snow free.

Paintbrush was in bloom near the top of the trail.

view of Mt Elinor to the east

view down to Lake Cushman and Hood Canal to the south

a new summit sign

Pano to the west from the summit of Mount Rose

I was able to protect my lunch from the gray jays, that always seem to gather when food is around.

some of the wildflowers and fungi along the trail today:

  

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

 

  

Mount Rose

We drove out to the north end of Lake Cushmann in the southern Olympics to hike the Mount Rose Trail (5.8 miles round trip with 3,500' gain). Most of the snow had been washed away by the recent rain and there was a bit of fresh snow from last night. We saw 9 other hikers on the trail.

There was lots of water in the creeks.

There were some downed trees over the trail, most were easy to step over or get around. About 2,000' we entered the Mount Skokomish Wilderness.

We started to see some fresh snow from last night above 3,000'.

It was chilly in the morning, so we saw lots of icicles, in the moss,

on tree roots of fallen trees,

on the ends of mossy rocks,

and hanging down from boulders above us.

The water in the stream crossing wasn't difficult to cross, we were able to step on rocks and then the log across the rest of the creek.

squirrel prints in the snow

About 4,000' we saw Mt Rainier through the trees to the southeast.

zoom of Mt Rainier above the clouds

The last 200 ft up to the top of Mount Rose had most of the trail exposed, with just patches of snow. View of Lake Cushman below

Going up the official top of Mount Rose on some snowy boulders

Pano to the west from the top of Mount Rose, Lake Cushman far below. 

Clouds over the Olympic peaks to the northwest

We had a dark cloud pass over us as we were heading back down the trail.

Mt Elinor and Mt Washington to the east had patchy cloud cover

we saw a few fungi along the trail: