[Moose]

Does anyone besides me ever pick their hikes by looking at their Gaia GPS map with tracks overlay on to find an area that decidedly needs to be fleshed out? Anyway, we’d been wanting to get out into the Olympics for a while and the weather forecast looked most promising out west, so we left the Seattle area around 6 AM and managed to get to the Tyler Way TH shortly before 10 AM (yay for Hood Canal bridge closures). The plan was to hike up the Tyler Way trail and down the Maynard Burn. We would come to regret that decision on the knee-pounding descent. 😊 Not sure why we can never seem to remember that it’s always easier to hike UP the steep stuff. The Tyler Way trail was in excellent shape and we reached the meadows in relatively short time.

Atop the ridge, we looked east to our first objective of the day, Tyler Peak. The going was easy and the views looking north were clear.

After a quick snack and a few photos, we left the summit and headed out along the ridge to Baldy. Along the way, we unintentionally climbed up and over Peak B.

Once on the other side of Peak B, we could look along the ridge and clearly see Baldy.

The ridge walking continued to be straightforward and easy, albeit with ups and downs. No snow to speak of en route, so our axes got a free ride. The clouds over the Buckhorn area lifted throughout the day, giving us ever better views of the snow-capped peaks.

From the summit of Baldy, Gray Wolf looked pretty accessible as well. We met two guys on the summit who were returning from GW – they confirmed that despite a few short snow traverses, there wasn't anything that really required the use of the axe there, either.

Looking NE at our route for the day as we head back. Tyler Peak on the right.

At the junction with the Maynard Burn trail, we ran into several nwhikers settting up a sweet campsite on the ridge (Snowdog, Barb-E, Karen, Jared, and of course, Izzy!! - sorry if I’m forgetting anyone). Really cool to meet more people from this site. I was probably a little too excited, actually. We chatted with them for a while, then started down the trail to enjoy a couple thousand feet of knee-pounding descent. We encountered a log across the trail with strange indentations. Is this natural or…?

[kitya]

I believe the patterns come from insect larvae.

[bobbi]

thanks so much for the trip report. looks like the snow is melting super fast! I prefer up Tyler, down Maynard awesome meet up with nwhikers.

[Snowdog]

Fun meeting you too Moose! We were soooooo happy to go down the Tyler Way trail- as everyone had told us, it was far nicer than the Maynard Burn. It actually had switchbacks! We did Baldy & Gray Wolf Sunday before hiking out. Great weekend!

[RodF]

Glad to hear Tyler Peak way trail is being enjoyed (It was originally laid out by local hunters for their pack stock. When they heard the USFS had allowed us to reopen and clear it a decade ago, they objected rather vehemently to me, feeling it was their "private trail" and saying they'd deliberately tried to obscure it near the trailhead so others wouldn't discover and use it! The idea of a "private trail" on public land... remains to me a very curious idea!) Anyway, I really prefer going up Tyler and down Maynard because there are several sources of water along Tyler, so I don't have to pack water all the way up from the trailhead. Wow, snow had melted dramatically over the past month!

[Moose]