Mt.
Si Via Teneriffe Road
05-23-26
For
the first day of Memorial Day
Weekend, I chose a hike with lots of elevation gain. The month started
very slowly with only 700' of gain after two hikes. A trip up Mt. Si
via the Teneriffe Road would be 10 miles with 3300' of gain. I wanted
to get an early start and I was on the road at 7:07 am. I stopped in
Issaquah for gas and arrived at the trailhead at 8:07 am. On April
hikes up Mt. Teneriffe, the parking lot was mostly empty at 8:00 am.
Not this time. The lot was about 65% full. I was expecting a few clouds
but it was totally socked in. My phone had a major software update and
my GPS was not working. The app opened but had no satellite signals.
That never happened before. After messing around and restarting the
phone it did not work. So much for a track this day. I started up the
trail at 8:12 am. I passed a group on the connector trail to the old
Teneriffe Road. I turned left onto the road. In a few minutes I reached
the junction with the Teneriffe Falls trail. I went left again. Most
hikers go right to the falls or Mt. Teneriffe. The Connector Trail is
.50 miles. The next mile is pretty flat. Early on I saw thimbleberry
flowers along with buttercups and bleeding hearts. At 1.5 miles the
road starts
climbing and does not let up. The start of the climb had me already
overheating. I stopped to switch to a short sleeve shirt and zip off
my pants legs. It was only in the low 50s but the humidity was off the
charts. I was sweating hard and none of it was evaporating.
The humidity slowed me down. I kept up a steady pace. I tried my GPS
again. I found that the update turned off location service. I changed
that and I went from zero to 16 satellites in sight. The GPS still did
not work. I restarted the phone and that did nothing. I put it away
again. A little later I took it out again and shut down the app again
and restarted it. This time it worked. I had a track after hiking about
2.4 miles. I was soon in the cloud layer. That only made it more humid.
I passed by the Teneriffe Falls Connector Trail and headed for the long
steep traverses. The trail seemed a bit rockier than I recalled. It
was. I found out why a little later. I did notice some recent brush
cutting. None of it as moved off the trail. At the end of a leftward
traverse I reached a bench. There is not much of a view normally but it
was zero through the clouds. I did take a quick food and water break. I
had one more traverse to the right and then back left for the long
traverse. Right after the turn is a spot where I can see Mt. Rainier
and Rattlesnake Ledge. The trees will soon be tall enough to remove the
view. This day all I saw were clouds. The trade steepens and finally
flattens. There are two small creeks that were both still running.
Along here, I saw one of the biggest yellow violet patches of the year.
From there it is just a few short switchbacks to the Mt. Si trail
junction at the 4.2 mile mark. I turned left towards Si. Now I could
see a tread line on one side of the trail. A lesser one was on the
other side. Some small Bobcat sized piece of heavy equipment came
through cutting the brush. There was more of it on the narrower
Connector Trail. By now, I had seen a hiker and several groups of
runners coming down. It seems that nobody had removed any of the cut
branches. On my way down I took the time to remove most of them from
the trail. It looked like nobody had moved any of them since they were
cut. I reached the highest point and then dropped down into Haystack
Basin. My first view was of the Haystack. Recent news was of a rescue
and a fatality at the top. Now I was out in the open and the sky was
mostly blue. While crossing the basin I saw a lot of blooming phlox. I
reached the North Ben Overlook to find nobody thee. To the south on the
rocky point there was a group of hikers. Below, I could see nothing but
the top of the cloud layer. There was a light breeze but the sunshine
made it comfortable. I arrived at the overlook at 10:30 am. I hiked 5
miles in 2:18 gaining about 3200'. It was not bad considering the
conditions.
It was really nice on top. A person came and went but other than the
distant group, I had a lot of solitude on Mt. Si. There was not much to
be seen other than the top of the clouds. One set of towers went in and
out of sight. I think it was on Tiger Mountain. There were no tall
buildings above the clouds. The Olympic Mountains were not visible
either. The top of the clouds looked to be at about 2700' to 2900'. I
was in no hurry to get back down into the pea soup so I just enjoyed
the top. I finally packed up and headed down at 11:13 am. I
had a good 43 minute stay on top. I climbed back out of the basin to
the highest point and began the long 3200' descent. I spent time moving
a few dozen small branches off the trail. My knee is still a little
sore and the rocky parts of the route were challenging. The smoother
section were great. The wind was still zero in the forest and the
humidity picked up again. I saw more people going down but it as never
crowded.
The last 1.5 miles saw more hikers going up and down. When I reached
the lower Teneriffe Falls junction I picked up several more groups
heading down. I picked up the pace and reached the car at 1:21 pm. The
sky was now half clear and half clouds. It was in the lower 60s. The
lot was now about as crowded as when I started out. A group was waiting
for the Trailhead Direct bus to arrive. I was soon on my way home.
Traffic on the first day of the holiday weekend was not bad at all
driving home. This was a great way to start the weekend. I ended up
high enough to get into the sunshine. My route to very
popular summit was not crowded and even Haystack Basin was mostly
empty. I enjoy sunny days looking down to the cloud tops. There were
still some wildflowers in bloom. So far this year I had only had 3000'+
of gain three times. It was nice to have more elevation gain.
The 10 mile route via the Teneriffe Road is 2 miles longer than the
regular Mt. Si trail. I needed a big weekend to bring a very slow start
to May up to at least an average month. I felt good and so did my knee
after a tougher hike to start the weekend.