Saturday, June 1, 2024
It’s been 11 years since I last hiked Saddle Mountain, although Greg has visited several times since then. Turns out today was a good day to go because the wildflowers were amazing.
We arrived at the trailhead nice and early at 7:50am:
The trail starts out in a VERY lush green forest:
We reached the side trail for the Humbug Mountain viewpoint and turned right:
There’s a nice viewpoint area here with a picnic table, although the views of Humbug Mountain would get better higher up:
Behind us we could see Saddle Mountain:
Continuing up the main trail we started seeing lots of wildflowers. Fringecup:
The first of MANY monkey flower we would see:
Monkey flower and rosy plectritis:
Chocolate lily:
So much monkey flower!
Paintbrush:
Bleeding heart:
I didn’t utilize the picnic table for a break, but I bet many do:
Chickweed:
Monkey flower and larkspur:
Erosion caused by switchback-cutting:
More monkey flower:
Until last fall the trail had been closed for several years while they did repairs. Some of the material from that project was still laying around:
More and more flowers:
Passing a funny-looking rock at a viewpoint:
New footbridge:
The intense stretch of wildflowers briefly ended and I was back in the forest. Greg was way behind photographing flowers:
Back out into the open:
A view of Humbug Mountain:
There’s the summit:
Almost there:
This trail stabilization effort appears to have failed:
Made it!
It was just me and one other person for about ten minutes, which was awesome and rare. It was very cloudy up there, but I still had some views. The other summit of Saddle Mountain:
Looking north towards Astoria:
Green Mountain to the north with Astoria beyond:
View to the north:
View to the northeast:
Wickiup Mountain:
The distant hump just below the cloud is Nicolai Mountain. On a clear day Mt. Rainier is visible just to the right of it, but not today:
View to the southeast:
Angora Peak, Onion Peak, and Sugarloaf Mountain hiding in the clouds to the southwest:
The Pacific Ocean to the west:
Greg and I were carrying radios so I knew he was nowhere near the summit. He said he wasn’t even going to try and make it because he was too busy with wildflowers, so after a break I headed back down.
The massive areas of clearcuts are pretty depressing, but the wildflowers on this hike are outstanding. Glad to finally have come back here.
Gaia stats: 5 miles, 1,600′ elevation gain
