[SultanHiker]

Thanks to Jacob Smith for the excellent beta. Absolutely precious. Big help. And Mike Lewis for the GPX: I mention Persindex frequently in this report. It is basically a halfway point between Persis and Index. It connects their two ridges. It is not a named peak on most maps. But peakbagger.com has its location. The tarns below it are a perfect place to grab water or to camp. Really a beautiful location. Had wanted to do this for a long time. Road [FS 62] has been gated for a few years. Finally broke down and bought the Weyerhaeuser [Vehicle] Recreation Pass. Benefits include a gate key necessary for driving to the Persis trailhead. $250 for one year starting August 1st. May have bent the rules by bringing my friend Dave and his 2 kids [12ish and 14ish]. Shhhhh… 😊 Started Labor Day Sunday. Kinda late [9:20 at Persis trailhead]. Was probably part of why we didn’t complete the full mission. Last bit of road was rough for a Volvo XC70 wagon. Barely room to turn around and not much room for more than 2-3 cars near the trailhead. Earlier on the road in, we intercepted a threesome pushing bikes up with the intention of Persis trail maintenance. [[[I had planned on the previous Friday to do the same, but it was soaking wet drizzle that Friday morning, so I changed my mind and drove toward Haystack Mountain with two of my kids. Why that hill has a name at 2700ft? I don’t know. Ten-Four is not named on maps [4400ft]… And it dwarfs haystack. I digress… ]]] Back to the real hike... We wished the bikers luck and continued on. Persis is a bushwhack for a good mile+. It seems to be getting some attention though. We met another party on the way back out who had put in some time cutting back the foliage. So it’s 20% better than before. Could use a hedge trimmer… PM me if you have one, and we can get working on that…

Spent a little time on the Persis summit. Great weather and views. A sightseeing helicopter came out of nowhere on the east flank. Barely heard it right before it crested and dipped to the west flank. Then it came back around to the east and landed on a ridge west of Persindex. Looked like 3 people got out and the chopper shut down for about 45 minutes before they loaded up and took off. --You may have to click the image after opening a photosphere to get it to go into 360 mode--- ---PHOTOSPHERE--- ---HELICOPTER VIDEO---

View to the east

Helicopter landed on the ridge

Above the upper Persis tarn, to the S-SE, there are a couple cairns that mark the best point to descend into the traverse. I explored this area with my golden retriever a couple weeks earlier on a day hike and turned around. I wouldn’t take a dog here… [small dog that you can hoist around might be ok, but still not a good idea in my opinion. Maybe in late winter when it might be all snow…] There’s some veggie belay moves and then large boulders that transition into an expansive talus field… After that, you stay well below the ridge that is to the climbers left. This is the ridge that ends up at Persindex. You can’t stay too high. If you stay too high, you’ll cliff out. Find the right point to descend to get around the main obstacle. It’s hard to see until you get low enough. But the massive ridge is easy to see. Big cliffy mounds. There is one land mass that you need to get around at its low point around 4860ft. You might have been lower than this at one point since you left Persis, but this is the area you need to skirt before you turn back upwards into the basin/gully that heads up to the tarns below Persindex tarns. Pictures below will help. I hope I’m accurate on the pic I scribbled on. I wish I took more pictures.

Talus below Persis

I believe you leave Snohomish County as you travel upwards SE through the mini-basin of slabs at the bottom and scree on the way up. Then you are in King County on your way to the pass to the Persindex tarns. There is a tarn at the bottom of this basin, and you have cliffs all around and some marmot company. ---PHOTOSPHERE--- We dropped packs at the Persindex tarns and partially set up camp. Weather was forecasted to cloud up or drizzle overnight, so we aimed to climb Index and get back before dark. The adults took some light summit bags with water and some snacks. The path from Persindex to Index gave us a little trouble. (hint: stay to the north of the ridge whenever possible. Climber’s left) The way back made lots more sense. Biggest challenge enroute was dropping elevation to the north side to traverse below Point 5212. Nasty little section that slowed us down and was very sketch without extra gear or insane courage. Gained the col between 5212 and Index before heading NE towards Index summit. Got off track a little and finally got into the open scree/mess around 5480ft. I lost the end of one of my $30 Costco carbon trekking poles somewhere after the col. Broke off a couple inches above the basket. Still worth the investment. I can’t fault them. This was serious abuse. Cascade Mountain Tech. Would buy them again in a heartbeat at that price. I chose them over my Black Diamond shock absorber aluminum model that I left at home. (In fact, one of the Black Diamond sections has a slight bend, acquired from a trek up Baring)

The conditions were optimal. The sky was blue. We had excellent views of Persis and the northside of the ridge to Persindex, with good photography lighting.

Persis on the left and Index on the right

Index

But time was not on our side. We had taken too long to get to this point and we didn’t want to be in the dark on the ridge back to camp. We did the math and decided to head back to the tarns below Persindex for the night with the possibility of an early morning round trip to Index before heading back out. The way back was lots faster. We corrected our navigation errors and realized how much faster it could be. Climbing up from below 5212 was a lot easier than the descension earlier.

Trail burrito for dinner

That night was still clear and gorgeous with views of Rainer basking in the light of the sunset. The kids were not interested in getting up early to do the estimated 5 hour round trip to summit Index in the morning. So Dave and I agreed to wake up at 5:20 and make the final call about just the two us of making the trip while the kids slept in. The star gazing was excellent until the clouds rolled in around midnight. The wind picked up and I had a terrible time in my bivy. I don’t know how much sleep was actually attained on my end. It also got really cold overnight. I was overheated when I went to bed, but kind of cold when it was time to make the decision in morning. And a full bladder is suboptimal when trying to get more sleep at 4am in a bivy. Dave woke me out of a pseudo sleep at 5:20. Visibility was 30 yards max. We agreed to wait an hour and reassess. That hour ended up being 90+ minutes and neither of us was keen on getting moving in the foggy wetness. Visibility was slightly better, but still bad. So by the time we were up, we decided to give up on the Index plan… ☹ We made coffee and discussed the exit. Kids had school the next day. We both had work. So we hung out for a little while and we packed up. Just after we left the tarns, we all dropped our packs for the quick scramble to the top of Persindex. The trees were damp with dew, but not enough to soak us too bad. Excellent views of the fog in the Skykomish Valley. Index was playing peekaboo. And it was worth the tiny effort to attain the Persindex summit. Really took no time at all.

View of Index from Persindex

We hiked out at a decent pace. But we stopped to collect some All Natural Alpine Organic Shade Grown Mountain Blueberries. Grand plans were made to sell these for an enormous profit. They taste that good! Every once in a while we’d stop to sample them and rate them on a scale from 1 to 10. We gained the boulder/talus to the Persis Tarns and took a break. On our way down we crossed paths with a couple who had just spent the night on Persis and done some trail maintenance. I didn’t recognize them from a couple weeks before when I day hiked Persis with my dog. But later it clicked in my head (didn’t recognize them because there were only two this time, instead of three the time before). I hope to run into them again and join them for trail maintenance, desperately needed for the first 1+ miles. They definitely improved the trail. But it is need of a lot more attention! Really just for the early steep section… Traffic was bad on HWY 2, but not as bad as could be, considering it was Labor Day at 3:30pm. It was a great trip. Don’t think I’ll have time to do it again before winter sets. But I plan on doing it next summer before my pass expires… Notes: Only saw 2 piles of bear scat. A couple forest chickens (that’s what I call all grouse-type birds up at altitude). Garter snake. Couple marmots. Maybe a pika. Small raptor. No fish in any of the tarns. One bat over the tarn we collected water from below Persindex. Bugs were a non-issue this late in the season.

[RichP]

Good to see a report from that area. I hope the permit price was worth it.

[Redwic]

Regarding the $250 permit... Does it only apply to the Forest Road 62 gate/area, of to other Weyerhaeuser areas in the State, as well?

[SultanHiker]

[LukerBee]

The one picture of the hike to Persis does not look much worse than years back. Good info about access.

[SultanHiker]

Here's another pic of the trail. Also not the worst of it. I don't pull out the camera when it's ultra thick. The worst is where the saplings have grown to 8 feet high and you're pushing the branches aside to verify your footing. Definitely makes it hard to follow the trail a half dozen times.

[SKS]

Nice report! I've been looking at those mountains all summer wanting to go back there. I didn't realize so many people were still going up there.

[Gwen]

[SultanHiker]

[ale_capone]

thanks! i saw the chopper from home and feared it was a rescue. couldnt find any news on it. didnt know that heli tours where a thing up there. hope they had wine and cheese. i also highly agree regarding not taking a dog beyond persis. unless they are highly skilled, can rappel, and talus hop.

[Bluebird]

It's great to see that the trail still exists. I used to do winter snowshoe trips to Persis when the road was open. It's a great snow summit, have never been in summer conditions. <3