The weather in the Cascades was finally starting to feel a little bit like fall. With commitments in Seattle later that day, we drove out to the Snoqualmie Pass area with hopes of a fun, quick hike with multiple peaks.
After parking a bit before the trailhead due to some rugged sharp rocks on the road, Katie and I took off on the PCT on a nice brisk morning. We traveled an easy 1.7 miles to where the trail to Silver Peak branches off, which is marked by a giant cairn. Here the trail gets a bit rougher than the smooth PCT and climbs up to the saddle between Silver and Tinkham. It was here that we began to see some nice fall color starting to show and the blueberries were popping!!
We then began moseying over to Silver Peak, the highest summit in the immediate vicinity. The trail at lowdown on Silver switchbacks through a giant talus field and then continues onto a fun class 1-2 ridgeline to finish it off. It’s a great viewpoint of Snoq Pass and a cold wind was whipping on the summit. After such a hot summer it was a weird feeling! The last time I had been on top of Silver Peak I had come up another giant talus field to the west from Lake Annette, so I peered down that direction.
We were in a hurry to get out of the wind, so we were soon descending back to the saddle. I wanted to sneak in Abiel while in the area, so I jetted ahead of Katie to try to knock it off as fast as possible. I made a slight route-finding error here, following a slight path to contour around “South Silver Peak.” The path quickly became faint, but I pushed through, eventually ending up in some pretty thick trees and brush, which happened to be all wet, so my shoes and lower legs instantly became soaked. I only had a short way to go through this before I linked back up with the main path, but it wasn’t too fun. I resolved to find a better way on the return.
From this point on Abiel is straightforward, although I did underestimate the physical effort it would take trying to get it done fast. I was pretty gassed by the time I reached the class 2 summit, which had some good views back over to Silver. I quickly retraced my steps and found a much better path up and over South Silver Peak which took me all the way back to the main trail, missing the short bushwack in the process.
At this point I linked back up with Katie, who had essentially spent the entire 30-40 minutes I was gone eating berries by the handful. She was all rested and ready to go for Tinkham, so after about 30 seconds to catch my breath after my mad dash up Abiel, we were off, heading up the steep climber's trail towards Tinkham. The climb was steep, with slick dirt in places, but not too bad. Eventually we hit a rockier section immediately below the ridge crest. Here we took some care picking our way up the obvious route to the crest.
To be honest, having done no research beforehand I wasn’t entirely sure which of the two summits was the true peak. To be safe I tagged both, easily connecting them with a short ridge walk. There is some awesome exposure off the north side of this ridge. I gave Katie, who was now a tiny speck on the East summit, a hearty wave from the West Peak, and then hustled back over to her. Views were great from both summits:
We then reversed course and hiked all the way back to the car. By now the wind had stopped and it was a pleasant, sunny September day, which made the hike pleasant and uneventful. All in all, this area is a great spot for some quick, scenic peakbagging.
Final Stats: 9.02 miles / 3204 feet of gain
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