I am ramping up my training hikes. Instead of my standard Tiger Mountain conditioning hike I was on Rattlesnake Mountain this morning.
I left the car about 7:30 and that was a decent time. I saw a bunch of high school age boys coming down (I presume they were some local sports team) but otherwise the trail was not crowded at all. I mention this because this trail, on the weekends, is like downtown Seattle with the crowds. By 7:30 on a weekend, both sides of the road leading into the Rattlesnake Lake area are covered with cars. But today, it was nice.
I started up the new/official trail but quickly veered off-course and used the first section of the old trail, which is much steeper. I then used the official trail all the way up to the first anti-horse and anti-bike fence, which, using the official trail (which is longer) was about 3.6 miles.
On the way back I veered from the official trail farther up, mainly because I could hear a bunch of people coming up the trail and I was not inclined to navigate that situation.
On the way up I stopped at the upper ledge and looked north to see Mount Si and Mount Teneriffe – I love seeing mountains I recently hiked, and Teneriffe (on the right in the picture below) was my hike last Saturday.
Just over 6 miles, 3K elevation gain, 3.5 hours, a nice workout.