[Randy]

One word describes the approach to this one, endless! I still don't know why I chose to walk the road to Teneriffe on my day off work when I had countless options, but it's another Homecourt Peak off the list and a nice little summit being so close to Seattle and all. I started off around 11 AM in my slippers (good bike shoes!) and made my way up the road on my new (but really heavy) beater bike I picked up for free a couple months back. I pushed out the first mile and a half on the bike well enough, but before long I had to start pushing as around a mile into the ride the road steepens considerably. I stowed the slippers in the pack, whipped out my boots and began pushing and pushing and pushing! I pushed that darned bike all the way to 4150'! There were a few spots where I was able to ride on the ascent, but for the most part it was steep enough where I could push faster than I could ride and then there were plenty of sections that were too steep for me to pedal the 38 lb bike anywhere. About 300 times I thought to myself that the bike is slowing me way down and that I should just throw it in the trees and speed along without it! Yet, thoughts of a 50 minute descent vs. a 2.5 hour descent kept me very motivated. So, at 4150' there's a little saddle above Ranchor Lake and this is where I found the trail that follows the ridge over to the summit. The trail is quite obvious the entire way and rises over a 4600' false summit, drops back to 4500', and finally gains the 4733' true summit some time later. Teneriffe offers up great MFK views and different look over to the "Haystack" on Si. By the time I arrived, it was just after 2:30 and I wanted to be home in Seattle at 5:30 which didn't leave a whole lot of time (glad I pushed the bike the whole way!). So, I hurried back down the trail and jumped on the bike. It was a fun descent, except when I crashed, and it took me somewhere around an hour to make it down. Good times...