[Arete]

With the avalanche danger high in the upper elevations, we opted for a 5-summit Tiger Mountain Traverse this Saturday. It was a very pleasant 14-mile ramble (about 3,000 ft of climbing total) across the summits of Middle, East, West-1, West-2, and West-3 that took us through a lot of cool forests (with a few less-than-cool road walking sections).

Map of first part of traverse

Map of second part of traverse

We began from the Tiger Summit Parking lot along Highway 18 (after dropping a second car at the High Point trailhead) at 5 AM to beat the heat. We walked up the Westside Road surrounded by early morning birdsong and distinctly odd pockets of warm, humid air. After 2 miles on the road, the Tiger Mountain Trail was a cool, forested relief. We left the TMT for the Middle Tiger trail to the first summit in the low trees.

Early morning on the Westside Road

Bleeding heart foliage

One of our wildlife distractions

Trillium

On summit #1 - Middle Tiger (still happy & cool)

We descended a trail down the north side of Middle Tiger and long a spur road east to the main gravel drag (Road 4000). We climbed Road 4000 east to where it intersects the Preston Railroad grade. Rather than walk the road around to the summit (as we have often in the past), we opted for a quick bushwack up the west slopes of East Tiger, directly above where the Preston RR grade trail begins. This slope proved to be a short, steep lesson in the term “doghair thicket”, but it put us directly on top of East Tiger summit for a picnic breakfast at the picnic table (around 8 AM) with a nice view south to Rainier.

West Tiger 1 from just below Middle Tiger

Starting up the west slope of East Tiger

Doghair thicket slope on the west face of East Tiger

Picnic breakfast atop East Tiger

Mount Rainier from East Tiger

We continued by taking the East Tiger trail north across Soderman Creek and up the Bootleg Trail to the top of West Tiger 1 and the Hiker’s Hut. It was here that we saw our first other people of the day.

Snow on Tiger Mountain in mid-May!

Root bridge across Soderman Creek

Are we hot and tired yet?

The Bootleg Christmas Tree

Cooling off in the Hiker's Hut on West Tiger 1

It was late morning now and the open road walking from West Tiger 1 to West Tiger 2 was getting distinctly unpleasant (but blessedly short).

The hot road between West Tiger 1 and 2

The hot road up to West Tiger 2

Scenic summit of West Tiger 2

The short trail onward to West Tiger 3 brought us finally into social portion of our trip (the crowds ascending from High Point).

The fifth and final summit - West Tiger 3

The entire walk took us 8 hours, complete with snowball fights, millipede races, and what some in our group considered way-too-many stops for photographs. The trip is a nice cross section of the Tiger Mountain area, and can be extended on the south end to include South Tiger Mtn, and Hobart Gap as we did last year.

[tigermn]

Sill some snow up there. Unbelievable. Gotta be gone soon. I've thought about a 5 summit ordeal sometime. Definitely looks like a 2 car operation or you're in for a real long day.

[Mark Griffith]

Nice job on getting the kids out. One of these days I want to do the trip traverse of Tiger, Squak and Cougar...

[puzzlr]

14 miles! Way to go kids (and you too parents)

[Arete]

Thanks all - these guys love to hike, so long as it includes enough on-trail story telling (getting increasingly challenging on the uphills), sugar-laden treats, summits, interesting bugs, and either snow to glissade on or rocks to scramble on. The hardest part of this hike for them was the heat. That seems to have been the case since they started out as little hikers - so long as we began at the crack of dawn and were heading down by early afternoon they were happy campers. MBGriffi: Last year the older boy and I did a Tiger, Squak, Cougar traverse of sorts in the wintertime. There are probably better routes but this is what we did: From Hwy 18 trailhead we took Tiger Mountain Road to the top of East Tiger. Backtracked down the summit spur road and continued down Tiger Mtn Rd to Paw Print. Went west on the RR Grade trail to the TMT which we followed west to 15-mile gap. Then the One View trail to the Poo Poo Pt trail to the glider launch spot and down the Chirico trail. From where we reached the Issaquah Hobart Rd we didn't know of any direct connection so we followed the Rd north to Sycamore Dr SE and up the winding streets to the Sycamore trailhead (the least favorite part of our trip (it would be ncie if someoen knew of a better connection). We ascended the nice East rdige trail on Squak through Thrush Gap and on to the central Pk of Squak. We descended the C1, N1, and W1 trails to the west access at Hwy 900 where we met the other half of our family for the trail up Wilderness Peak in Cougar Mtn Park (very little road walking needed to get to the north spur access trail going up Wilderness Peak). All told it was not a wilderness experience by any means, but a fun day of route finding and a good long hike with a nice variety of trails, roads, landscapes, plants, and people.

[Mark Griffith]