[Stefan]

Easy. Pleasant. Awesome. I went with my 2.8 year old daughter to this place on Friday. Sometimes she walked. Sometimes I carried her in the backpack. This is a beginner's place dream hike. You walk through old growth. You have two lakes you can view. And you get a full frontal of Mt. Rainier. You can even get in a summit with this hike. And there is a trail to the top! The round trip is about 6 miles and 1300 feet of elevation gain total. Road is a little rough in some spots, but if you are careful any car can make it. Take the bridge over the Carbon river just before the Carbon River Entrance. Follow the main road until the very end. At almost one mile the trail branches to the right to the summit of Bearhead Mountain. We took the trail to the left and went to Summit Lake and then on to the summit of Rooster Comb mountain (trail to top) where we were treated to a full frontal of Mt. Rainier.

[sarbar]

Thanks! I was thinking about doing that trail, and was going to make the boyfriend drive me Hey, I'll still make him drive me!

[Go Jo]

We also hoofed it up this trail over the weekend and had the same reaction to the trip. I think we're going to break the inlaws into hiking there. It's like finding something on sale... the work needed is not equal to the great payoff (lakes, Rainier views, mini summit, photo ops galore). We wondered if anyone knew about the fire up there Sunday. As we were heading down a ranger told us they were turning hikers around on the trail and closing the area due to a possible fire. Anyone hear details on this or perhaps were part of the hoards of folks we saw heading up as we came down?

[catwoman]

Just went to Summit Lake yesterday and it is a wonderful hike. The trail through the woods is very picturesque, too. However, I'd say the road there is a bit more than a little rough in spots. I thought it was very rough in a lot of spots and I would highly recommend a high clearance vehicle. Amazingly enough, there were low clearance vehicles at the trailhead, but I imagine they seemed to be trash-mobiles - or they probably are now, anyway. Also, this is a much more popular hike than I thought it would be. So, one is likely to encounter people.