Distance: 7.76 mi.
Elevation Gain: 2416 ft.
I met Rachael at the parking area on the shoulder of Tiger Mountain Road SE at 12 PM. No Discover Pass necessary here. We crossed the road and walked a bit uphill, just past the yellow bus stop sign where the trail enters the forest. The trail was soggy but luckily it wasn’t actively raining. We took the “no horse” trail on climbers left (west). Right after the junction with the “horse” trail farther north, we did a hairpin turn to climbers right (northeast) in order to climb an overgrown road up toward the peak. We followed the well-trodden path until we reached another road, where we turned right (south). There were small patches of snow all along the way, but this road was the first area with more than a dusting of snow on the trail (maybe 1/2 inch).
We reached the summit, a nice area with benches, at 2 PM. We had a snack there and then retraced our steps. We wanted to climb South Tiger #2 so we took a trail on our left that we thought would get us there, but it turned out to be a cutoff for a large switchback which took us right back to where we came from. So we went back down and took the next side trail to the left we found, which was very faint and overgrown. It also had more snow, so it was a bit more slippery. This trail took us to the South Tiger #2 summit, which had a funny little summit register in an old peanut butter jar. We retraced our way back to the main trail and turned left to head out. We decided to take the “horse” route on the way down for some loop action, but it was way muddier. All in all we spent four hours poking around in the Issaquah Alps in March and didn’t get rained on, so I would call it a major success.
(Download the free Gaia GPS app on your phone to view tracks and then get a Gaia GPS membership if you want offline access. Discount below!)
Gear Used:
- Hiking boots
- Trekking poles
Post may contain affiliated links