[naturealbeing]

Destination: Sweet spot in the weather or Mt. Defiance.
Arrived at the TH at 10:45 and hit the trail at 11:00. There were two other men their w/3 dogs that were heading to Mason Lake. As I had not been here before, I asked them for some information about the old and new trail.  After tossing the info around in my head. I decided to take the old trail along Mason Creek, a more direct route. It took an hour to get to the lake w/about 2,000 ft. of gain. Upon arriving at the lake I spent a few minutes taking some pictures. The lake was half covered w/snow and ice.
I left the lake at 12:05 and took the Mt. Defiance Trail. On the way during the uphill parts in the shade I had to hike on some hard packed snow. This wasn’t so bad because there were already steps in place. Near the summit I ran into a young lady on her way down. She said I wasn’t to far from the summit and gave me some directions. In another 15 minutes I was on top. It had taken me an hour and a half form the lake w/about 1,600 ft. of gain to reach the summit. At the summit there was only 3 to 4’’ of snow. The sun was shinning bright and you could see Mt. Rainier, Glacier Peak, and Mt. Baker (through a little haze), w/all points in between. I could see there was a lot of new snow on Glacier Peak and the mountains east of Glacier Peak. The surrounding peaks were bare. The peaks near and east of Snoqualmie had some snow but not their normal amount for this time of year. Looking over to Bandera Mtn. I could see the new Mason Trail and it didn’t look to far from the summit. Humm! Now I’m thinking wouldn’t it be nice to get up there too. Well after a nice one-hour lunch break and a visit by two other folks, it was time to head down. It was now 2:30 and I reached the split in the new Mason Trail at 3:15. There was a lady their w/her dog and she said that the summit to Bandera was about 400 ft. in gain. Well I had plenty of energy left in me so off I went. It took me a half hour to get to the west summit. It wasn’t 400 ft. of gain either. It turned out to be 1,000 ft. Anyways some clouds where moving in and the wind was beginning to gust. The sun kept playing hide and go seek behind the clouds so I decided that reaching the true summit would have to wait for another day. I had plenty to be thankful for this day and wanted to get back to the TH before it got too dark, so off I went. I got back to the split at 4:30 and back at the TH by 5:24.
As near as I could figure out I had hiked about 10 miles and recorded 5,027 ft. of gain.

[Backpacker Joe]

Good God, Ill never get used to that GREEN in January.



TB

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"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Backpacker Joe...There are some people even bears won't eat!"

-Dave Workman

[JimK]

It was just too nice to work yesterday. I left at 9:15 and went directly up Bandera. Both summits make for a full day. I can verify that it is 1000' straight up to the top of Bandera from the Mason Lake Trail.

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Hiking Northwest

[solohiker]

[Old Bazumpus]

I think I summitted Bandera today.  That is, I'm not sure, because I've never been up there before, and it was foggy, windy, and blowing snow.  I definitely made it up to the ridge, and then walked along the ridge for about half a mile until the ridge started to drop (I couldn't see further for the fog).  Would that have been the summit?  Anyway, as I said, I couldn't see a thing, but it was a good workout nonetheless.