Mount Teneriffe Washington: 4 Sept 2020

So I love to do this hike, Teneriffe is my favorite mountain hike off 90, maybe I just like being alone for most of the hike, no granted with Covid19 this hike has become more popular.

 

If you like long walks in the forest with the company of squirrels and rabbits, then the full trip to Mt Teneriffe is for you.

https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/mount-teneriffe

This is a long hike, at 13 miles, and around 4000 feet elevation gain, you have to pace yourself, and be prepared for no views until after 3 to 4 miles, when you finally start seeing some clearing.

I started at 8am on Saturday, very low fog / mist with light fine drizzle, once past the junction of the Falls trail, the forest starts to thicken, with the day being a little dark, and low fog in front of me, all I could hear was a few faint animal sounds in the distance, and my foot steps.

It was clearly wet, but not cold. 

I think some fall colors are signifying the season change.

As you hike up you'll pass two waterfalls, this is my favorite one.

After 1.7 hours I saw once person pass me, with a mask, and in about 5 minutes someone approached from the top, also with a mask on, I saw no one else till around 3000 feet elevation, ( 3.3 miles up )

In around 0.8 mile is the Mt Si connector trail, I stopped here to have a protein bar, see if there were any views, nope..still a white cloud :)

There were times that it became quite dark and eerie.

And then you see a break in trees.

Here is some video of the fog rolling in..

This is video of a little fury friend, and the sounds of the forest.

I was surprised to find such a lovely spiderweb going across the trail, the video does not really do it justice.

This is not a synonymous trail for flowers but I did manage to find a few of these along the way.

Whenever I see this logging road at this elevation it always amazes me.

I continued on, at a very relaxed pace, just taking in the fresh air, light misty surrounding, and then a glimmer of sunlight appeared, I decided that I would try out to explore Dixie peak area at the junction, it was a beautifully grey morning with no views, my legs were feeling good, so I ventured on for about a mile. tip DO NOT go down the logging road..lol

This was the view looking back towards Mount Si just as the sun was coming through for the brief second or two.

Stopping for a snack and checking the weather.

So apparently it was going to be partly cloudy, although at this particular point it looked kind of dreary. Because I had seen a few sunrays for once I finished my little detour, I continued on and saw these rays.

I got back to the main junction at around 12.30pm, and thought ok, with a sunlight coming through it may be useful to get to Teneriffe, so I continued on, and by 1pm, I got to the top, the heavy cloud covered most the view, but the peaks of nearby mountains were visible, which made think..timelapse!

So I setup my camera, and started it, then ate lunch, took more shots, only 4 people on the top.

As soon as the timelapse finished, I thought at the time, "this is why people take selfies!" and proceeded to take one, I look annoyed in these for reason..lol

Definitely smiles on the way down!

I continued to take more pics of the clouds and peaks appearing and hiding again, it was a nice view, definitely worth the long haul.

And where does the trail go... Into the clouds 🤣

I always find these trees suspended on the side of a bank and interesting picture, especially today with the little fungus that was happening It looked really crazy.

Heading down slowing, while listening to some music was nice, I saw a total of 36 people on the trail, 11 with no masks, and the rest putting them on as soon we saw each other, thank you to those people!

I appreciate the effort!

Finally getting to the car, I felt satisfied doing a long hard hike after nearly 4 months of not hiking anything over 1800feet.

I did soak in a warm bath of epsom salts after, it felt great! 

This is the topo linkfor my route: https://caltopo.com/m/PDEF

I think the next trip should be Camp Muir..lol

Cheers