Dirty Harry's Peak/Balcony

Our Hiking Time: 4h 30m
Total Ascent: 3400ft
Highest Point: 4680ft
Total Distance: 8 miles
Location: N 47° 27.0498, W 121° 37.2336
Difficulty: Hard



On the heels of our Mt. Washington hike, we decided to return to the Exit 38 area and try to get a view of our previous summit from the other side of I-90 by tackling Dirty Harry’s Peak, the unofficial name for the eastern end of a ridge that begins with Mailbox Peak. Evidently, back in the late 1970’s Harvey Manning began referring to this end of the ridge as “Dirty Harry’s” in honor of Harry Gault, the now somewhat infamous independent logger, renowned both for his baffling ability to access remote stands of timber as well as his relentlessness in procuring timber, often carving large swaths in piecemeal out of the I-90 corridor.

The trailhead can be accessed via Exit 38. When coming in from the west, you’ll need to follow the signs to the State Fire Training Center, past Olallie State Park and back under I-90. Shortly thereafter, you’ll encounter a gate that says it will be closed at 4pm. Continue following the road over a bridge, for roughly half a mile. At a bend in the road you’ll see a large gravel road to the left. A few hundred feet beyond on the right is the trail, marked by two large concrete road blocks. While we found a couple of cars hugging the almost non-existent shoulder here, we chose to turn around and park in the gravel lot just outside the gates, rather than risk of getting caught behind them.

The old forest road that serves as a trail is mostly rocky, rain and weather having stripped away much of the soil, exposing the small boulders just beneath the surface. Water was again the prevalent theme, either cutting across our path or turning down it, transforming the trail into a streambed. Logging discards is the other theme; buckets and cable are often found languishing at the trailside. The first mile and a half to the Balcony is very moderate; most hikers will have no problem getting to the junction at 2,500’, where an old oil drum serves as a marker. Follow it to the right for roughly a quarter of a mile to a rocky outcropping that overlooks I-90. McClellan Butte looms large dead ahead, while Mt. Defiance and Bandera Mountain crouch to the east. Although one can supposedly bushwhack through the young trees for better westward views, we headed back and continued on to the summit.

From the Balcony the trail is wetter, rockier, and steeper. It is also unabashedly uphill. It rarely gives more than a few dozen yards of level ground before ratcheting upwards again. At 3,000’ the trail meets Museum Creek, so named for “Harry’s Museum,” a fabled collection of rusted logging equipment secreted away somewhere nearby. Enough post-hike research was done to determine that at least one logging truck is up there somewhere, but we were unable to find it despite twenty minutes of rooting around the immediate area. Continuing on we found occasional windows had been cut through the alders, yielding more views of McClellan Butte and Mt. Washington.

We hit fresh snow at 3800’ and slogged out the rest of the increasingly steep trail. The Douglas fir is young here, evidencing the clear-cutting done by Harry a few decades earlier while opening up the trail overhead. The sun played off the snow covered trees as we reached the top. Scramble up some boulders to find yourself on something of a precipice with a sheer drop of a couple hundred feet to the Granite Lakes below. That's Baker to the far north, past Bessemer and Russian Butte. To the east you should be able to make out Glacier Peak. While the view is impressive, one can only imagine the panorama that Harry’s chainsaw may have briefly created. Most of the views in other directions have been reclaimed by the recovering forest, though the shadow of Mt. Rainier skulks unobscured to the south.

Overall, the roughness of the former logging road -- large rocks, often made slippery by water -- and uncompromising inclines after the Balcony worked to push this trail into the hard category. Definitely attainable by most prepared hikers, just make sure to bring the hiking poles to steady you over water hazards and rock. On the way back down we found another surprise: just under the bridge spanning the South Fork Snoqualmie River the water is placid and deep and some helpful folks have tied up a rope swing to take advantage of the swimming hole. Definitely a stop for next summer! - Nathan

View large versions of the photos