Trip Report
Day Hike - Wilderness Peak
Pleasant Fall hike with a sunny summit and a great group of hikers !
Hany Ramadan
- Sun, Oct 21, 2018
- Day Hike - Wilderness Peak
- Cougar Mountain: Jim Whittaker Wilderness Peak Trailhead
- Day Hiking
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Trail was in great condition. Very well marked, and lots of printed maps at the trailhead (but always bring your own!) Lots of leaves on the ground, and many interesting mushrooms kept us entertained.
Sunny and clear weather all week long (with a forecast of rain for the week ahead), made us really happy to get nice weather on this weekend day hike.
The morning fog was especially heavy throughout the region (about quarter-mile visibility, according to the weather warning), but expected to lift by noon. Temperature was 50 degrees.
After introductions and a pre-hike group sync about the trail ahead and other safety-related things (e.g. appointing first aid lead), we headed up the trail 15 minutes after our meeting time (after waiting for one hiker). Trailhead has a porta-potty style bathroom.
We were out of the fog within 15 minutes, and it was sunny the rest of the way up to the peak.
We headed up the Whittaker Wilderness Peak trail, and came down the Gombu Wilderness trail (basically a loop). (Factoid: Nawang Gombu was the first person to summit Everest twice!)
We met about a score of other small parties while on the trail.
At the peak we took a 15 minute break, ate a quick snack, and signed the summit registry book.
We had left the trailhead at 10:15 AM, and were back down by 1 PM.
While we all had found parking spots in the parking lot, by the time we got down cars were parking on the side of the road.