Distance: 3.2 mi.
Elevation Gain: 1000 ft.
The weather was looking good at the beginning of this three day weekend. We are still constrained to shorter hikes with the little baby (3 months), so we were eyeing nearby hikes we hadn’t done in the 3-4 mile range. We found Pinnacle Peak, aka Mount Peak, aka Mount Pete, near Enumclaw and it seemed to fit the bill. It’s about an hour drive from Seattle and a somewhat popular hike and it’s a King County park, meaning no parking pass required. We started on the south side trailhead off of Mud Mountain Road. There a steeper option, the Cal Magnusson Trail on the north side of the mountain that makes a steeper ascent in about a mile up the 1000′ climb. There is a great map on the King County website.
The drive was uneventful and we were at the trailhead in just over an hour with a happy baby. We started hiking up the gated road and decided to keep going past the first few trail spurs. Maybe just a quarter mile up the baby decided she was unhappy and we had to stop to give her a bottle. That did the trick and we were back on our way. We decided to leave the road a short while later as the sun was in baby’s eyes and the trail seemed more shaded. She was a happy baby most of the way up and fell asleep just as we were getting to the top.
We didn’t linger long, enjoying some good views of the Olympics before heading down to keep the baby asleep. We mostly backtracked on the way down but took the road in a few places rather than the trail. This was possibly a little quicker and the views were generally better from the road. We managed to make it back to the car right about the time the baby was waking up. All in all, things went about as well as we could have hoped. I might want to come back to try the steeper trail sometime!
(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!)
Recommended brew: Keegan Ales Mother’s Milk
Gear:
- Baby Wrap/Carrier
- Day pack
- GPS
- Trail runners
- Trekking poles
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