Mailbox, Tiger, Si - Training Mantra

There is always those Go-To trails and paths. The ones that after a winter of in-action lead one back into the swing of things to get deeper into the high-country once the snow melts. As I talk to others it seems that each has their paths, each deeply familiar to them. For it is one thing to hike into a mountain path once, experiencing the sights, sounds and the texture of the terrain for the first time. But it is these paths that we return to time and time again that grow on us. We see them through the seasons and in the passage of time. They get us through the hard low times by presenting unrelenting switchbacks to work us through the burning edge of our emotions. Other times acting as reminders of past summers, great adventures, and far away friends that joined us on their summits. From their summits, vistas of the surrounding range seems to run the imagination and act as a measure to where a traveler might roam the coming season.

For me, around mid-march a change in my life returned me to these mountains. A return that has always seems to ground me when my mind turn to turbulent days. Time and time again I kept ascending, setting a good pace and finding my tempo on the rise. Since that time I have hiked about 200 miles much of them on these three. They ring like a hikers mantra, always spooling when I have a spare few hours. Mailbox, Tiger Si... Mailbox, Tiger, Si... Mailbox, Tiger, Si...

After a few turns around the hikers selection wheel I find myself out their base, saddle my pack upon my shoulders. Poles strapped in each hand and begin ascension. The pace is usually brisk, solo, sometimes another. Usually the last song I heard on the radio plays in my head to the sound of my heart beating in my ear drums. Soon the stiff cycles of my legs work themselves into a fluid motion, finding rock, root and tread to take me step by step higher. Other hikers I pass, while the trail runners overtake myself. Focused on the path before me, feeling the small benches as I finish each section, growing closer to the top.

On these trips I do not linger, yet I do not zone out the world around me. Images of forest floor, boulders and rocks seem frozen in a stare for a moment. My mind seems to be focused, but still the world around me keeps me informed of its presence every now and then. From time I stop to catch my breath, stretch the legs or just let the world come back into present. But then it is soon off along the path again..

Depending on the trail the summit comes with it's own trials... 

For Tiger Mtn, the direct three section Cable Line Trail gives no argument as to it's ascent. You follow a gully up the path of the Radio's Comm Cable. To each side the forest descends away in a jumble of Hemlock and Douglas Fir. You might switch back yourself along the warn path, but the trail itself does none of this. At 2.5 miles to the top, a quick afterburner brings you to the first of three forested summits. Issaquah and Sammamish lay before you, a chain of coal hills in Squak, Cougar and Mercer Rise descend towards the Seattle City Skyline. With a swig of some water and possibly a bar, you are back down the way you came bracing to keep knees from aching.

Issaquah Alps -- Sammamish

Distance - 5 mi

Elv Gain - 2000' (High Pt 2500')

Here in the Upper Snoqualmie Valley, all seems to revolve around Old Mt Si. An imposing peak of northern buttresses and southerns sloping hemlock forest, it rises above the valley in one solid wall, giving a center-piece presence to the Cascade Range that follows it. With it's haystack features of the small butte before it, and casting outlines of the face of a man resting beside it, it is the icon of this Valley of the Moon. The paths to the summit have two choices: the long switchbacks of the DNR path through the alternating Snag Flats 8 miles, or the boot beaten warn path originating from Boulder Garden and ascending the NW ridge with warn direct and short switchback trail. On the week day it is the home of those “Training” for what ever the summer is to bring, tagging the summit, descending, only to return once again till their daylight runs out. On the weekend, it is yielded to the throngs from the city, families dog, sneakers and long lingering summit picnics. They wonder over the outstretched traces of the Snoqualmie Valley field and farmland, point out their neighborhood down besides the blue waters of the sound, and take in the snow-caped outline of the distant Olympics and the great icy presence of the matriarch Tahoma to the south. These people regardless of season make this likely the most hiked mountain of the our little nook, something like a right of passage those native and recently arrived Puget-Sounder.

Upper Snoqualmie Valley

Distance - 6 to 8 miles

Elv Gain - 3500' (High Pt 4179')

Finally, there is the Training measure of the Valley, the forest scramble that is Mailbox. Made of twist and bends up the SW ridge-line, the ascent regardless of season or condition is always challenging. There has never been an effort to “build” a trail to the top of this mountain. Only the efforts of the local Search and Rescue and DNR to mark the path that seems to be most beaten out along the ridge. Each boot seems to etch this path more and more into definition, leaving the hiker to torment at the upward gaze he takes to find the next turn. In winter it is icy, in spring mud threatens to take away each step, summer brings more people and the fall brings the roaring winds again till winter lays a fresh coat. Atop the mailbox, with flag always up, awaiting for the postman to make his rounds. Yet after a scramble 3 miles and 4000 ft gain, only the summit seekers find what has been laid. At times there is a Hydrant as testament to the current trainees of the Fire Academy below. But each year the mailbox changes, a reminder of the winds that sometime dog a hiker in that last scramble to the summit.

Middle Fork Snoqualmie

Distance - 6 mi

Elv Gain - 4000' (High Pt 4840')

With completion of the last, the training Mantra begins again. Atleast till lingering snows yields to the summer sun and a hikers now fit, can begin to make those backcountry miles deep into the hallowed meadows, peaks, lake and valleys...

– Ridgewalker

Goldmyer Hotsprings

Upper Middle Fork Snoqualmie
Distance – 10 mile round trip
Elv Gain – 200' (1820' High Point)

It had been about two weeks since I last hiked. An accident had left me sore with back and neck pains and I have spent a great deal of time figuring out work and spending time around Cedar Falls Farm. There is one thing that over time sets in with me, cabin fever. My legs were meant to do miles, and I have discovered that with out movement, I cannot think beyond mental loops. The act of walking up a trail, any trail seems to put energy into what ever problem I am trying to solve and gives it new light. Trails act as meditation in movement, a vital part of the Yamabushi practice that I prescribe to. The input of new views, smells, sounds take my mind down alternate ways of looking at what is before me. So what was a simple get out and drive up to a river bar on the Middle Fork, instead leads me to Dingford Creek Trailhead and the upper reaches of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River.

This reach of wild river valley hold a special value to it. By virtue of a dirt/gravel road, you are able to sneak your way into the folds of the Cascade's deep woods. You get yourself behind the Snoqualmie Crest of Snoqualmie Pass and right up into the base of it's most notable mtns. Here, Chair Peak, Snoqualmie Mtn and the black bell of Mount Thompson rise directly from the valley floor. While forming a narrow slot, the light of the spring seems to seep down and warm the track along the river side. This is a great place for a stroll as it would seem. With 5 miles to Goldmyer Hotsprings, you walk through halls of moss and ferns, and rows of trillium reaching out for the suns first rays. This place can at at times seem dark, damp and cold. But on this day it was indeed a verdant oasis of the other, reminding the soul of the summer ahead.

With all temples, you must enter through a gateway. The bridge over the raging Dingford Creek acted as this. White with the intensity of winter's melt descending from high up on the shelf of the Alpine Lakes Traverse. The echos of this descent seemed to resound the valley like a base drum, allowing for one to feel it deep in the chest and recharge the spirit. Steps quicken, strides are purposeful to such reverberations and the heart seems to pulse with the quickening.

After the walk up the valley, you come to the base of Bootburn Creek, and the grove at Goldmyer. Cedars stand tall and large, and it seems that every type of rainforest flora and fauna make there habitat there. What you might curse a few days later in soggy-sneaker weather of the PNW, you marvel at is production. Like a verdant canvas of multiple shades of green, the awakening canopy of winter's slumber brings upon its spring buds, against the crown of dark evergreens of might stands. The reds and whites of salmonberry and thimbleberry highlight the trail, the yellow beacons of skunk cabbage line out the wetlands in the distance, and as always the delicate three petaled trillium lines the trails edge through the grove.

With a short conversation with the Caretaker about the couples stay in this back-end of the Snoqualmie, and the coming summer of high country ahead, I make my way to the Hotsprings Deck. There among moss and wood, the charging Bootburn just in front of me, I soak my bones in the warm waters of this fracture of the earth. While I have been coming to these special places all my life, I find it best alone. Typically, friends have came up with a host of excuses as to why the do not dip in Natural Spring water, but ultimately I enjoy the solace of nature present with only one to enjoy it's words.

Today, I have made it before the group of 16 Japanese hikers have made it up the trail. A central part of their culture back home, they seek out these places on the edge of their pacific rim home. Gain the same warmth and rejuvenation as back in the pools of Wakayama Prefectures or on the pilgrims track of Shikoku Island. Soon they will round the bend in their newly purchased NW Gear, and talk of work and family in their own tounge. But for now the pool and the sauna cave are mine to enjoy for a few hours before setting home.

Raven seem as always to follow me. It is not long before he finds me here as well, perching on long baugh of the cedar tree and watching intently making his calls, awaiting my response. I give in to his demands, having a short conversation, before making my way back down the trail. The day is a warm one, and I do not hurry down the trail. Sauntering from river beach to forest grove, I pass a few forest wanderer's making their way into the deep.  The suffering of the past few days seems to melt and the long rainy-ache of hard realities seems worlds away. Home in the Valley of the Deep Woods, my spirit seems to be recharged and my boots ready to roam...

-- Ridgewalker