Thursday, June 18, 2026
Today I drove up Road 2904 to the Juniper Ridge Trailhead for two different hikes.
My first hike was to Tongue Mountain. I hiked north on Tongue Mountain Trail #294.
Most of the trails around here are open to motorbikes, unfortunately, and I’ve heard horror stories of ruined and deeply rutted trails. I would certainly experience that later in the trip, but this trail was not too bad, and wasn’t annoying to hike. The trail stayed in the forest and I saw some wildflowers along the way:
After 0.9 miles I reached the junction with Tongue Mountain Lookout Trail #294A where I turned right:
Dirt bikes aren’t allowed on that trail, and someone had constructed a sort of barrier to prevent their passage, but further up I found a detour trail. So much for that:
The trail switchbacked uphill through the forest:
Then 0.6 miles from the junction the trail popped out of the forest at the base of Tongue Mountain’s twin summits. The north hump is the true summit (4,838′). Believe it or not it once hosted a fire lookout. Although there may have been stairs or a ladder back in the day, it’s a class 2 scramble to get up there now. Pretty doable, although coming down might have been tricky. I decided not to attempt it since I was by myself:
The south hump looked doable as well again, although I also decided against going up it since I was alone:
In-between the two humps was a smaller prominence (at right in photo below) that had a trail up the backside, so I contented myself with that as my destination:
There were some nice views to be had. To the north was Mt. Rainier:
And the Twin Sisters:
Below to the east was the Cispus River:
To the south was Sunrise Peak (far left) and Juniper Peak (far right) on Juniper Ridge:
Behind Juniper Ridge was Langille Peak and McCoy Peak, as well as Mt. St. Helens:
The peaks of the Mt. Margaret Backcountry:
Burley Mountain and its fire lookout on the far right:
I sat up there for a little bit enjoying the views and wildflowers:
Then I headed back to the car so I could hike up to Juniper Peak. Didn’t see anyone else on the trail the whole time!
Gaia stats: 3 miles, 920′ elevation gain
