Sunday, July 1, 2018
Greg and I hiked up Silver Star last weekend via the Grouse Vista Trailhead. Mom and Dad wanted to see the grand wildflower display on Silver Star Mountain. They don’t hike at all anymore and they wouldn’t have been able to handle the rough trail from Grouse Vista, so we knew we had to take them to the north side, even though the road is utter crap.
On Sunday Karl, Deb, Dad, Mom, and I piled into Karl’s truck and drove up there. Road 4109 is even worse than last year. I got my Outback up that road last year, but I probably wouldn’t have made it up this year. This is what the road looks like now, as photographed on our way down. This is the worst of the ditches:
Nice driving, Karl! We made it! There was only one other truck there when we arrived at 8:30.
Unfortunately we were very much in the clouds with no views:
We headed up the trail:
There were wildflowers all over the place:
Visibility was very limited:
The vegetation was sopping wet (we ran into some backpackers who said it rained pretty much all night), which had some beautiful effects:
We turned off of the old road and headed up Ed’s Trail. We were lucky to be here during a good beargrass year:
The wildflower show continued:
I love this part, where the trail crosses a huge meadow:
We cut over to the old road from Ed’s Trail in order to avoid some scrambling sections coming on Ed’s Trail:
Shortly after that we stopped for a break on some rocks above Ed’s Trail, which you see at the bottom of this photo:
Then we continued hiking the old road towards the summit:
Almost to the summit! (Notice the two switchback-cutters popping out onto the trail up there):
We made it! The “views” were pretty cloudy:
Here’s Karl looking out over Star Creek. Normally you’d be able to see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Adams out there, but not today:
We followed the old road all the way back to the car, hiking past thousands more wildflowers:
Sturgeon Rock:
On the way down the clouds lifted a bit, but not enough for us to see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Adams
As we neared the end, though, a bit of Mt. St. Helens came out:
Mt. Hood hiding in the clouds:
Mom wasn’t a fan of these really rocky sections, but she and Dad did great!
We got back to the trailhead at 2:30 and then we bumped our way down the road. There were seven cars parked along the road, having bailed on their way up when it got too rough. Some of the cars were partially blocking the road.
We stopped in Battleground at Double Mountain Brewing for some post-hike food and beer:
I could have done without the clouds, but the flowers were beautiful. So glad we were able to get Mom and Dad up there to see them. Great day!
Video:
