Mt. Washington

Our Hiking Time: 4h 15m
Total Ascent: ~3400ft
Total Distance: ~10 miles
Location: N 47° 25.5667, W 121° 42.0167
Difficulty: Moderate




Ah, the joy of software and guidebooks. This hike was all about the trials and tribulations of depending on others for information and guidance and feeling the pain when things did not quite line up. As you can see from the “track” of our ascent, sometimes things just don’t work the way you want them to. Mostly we've left it up there because it is so inexplicably bizarre, we can’t help stare at it.

We often refer to Manning & Spring and their ubiquitous guidebooks when looking for a hike. If nothing else they’re incredibly handy, being compact and full of the barest of information about a nearby trek. The drawback, as many people know, is navigating the purple and convoluted prose they employ. The Mt. Washington Hike profile requires combining two nonsensically separated “hikes” and following the authors' imagined interludes with singing gypsy loggers and plodding recollections of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. Instructions for getting on the trail you’re looking for are sometimes ambiguous or unclear, and in this case, resulted in us wandering a bit before really hitting the trail to the summit.

To clarify: Mt. Washington can be accessed via Exit 38 off I-90, taking a right, then pulling into the parking lot for Twin Falls. There’s a restroom and a trailhead here. Take the trail up the hill to get yourself on the Iron Horse Trail, nice and open as one would expect a one-time railroad track to be. Head right and uphill, past a major, signed intersection of trails, marked with a variety of destinations we will be visiting and detailing for you sometime in the future. The next unmarked trail you see on the left is the Mt. Washington trail. It’s only a couple hundred feet past this intersection and there are no other trails in between. We stress this as we ended up a quarter a mile down the Iron Horse Trail before retracing our steps.

The trail starts out graveled and becomes increasingly rocky, wandering through alder and maple, past streams and waterfalls. Before long you’ll encounter the first of many rock walls that attract the bouldering and climbing crowd. On summer days you’ll see enthusiasts roped in and clambering up rock walls just off the trail.

The first couple of miles of trail are the hardest. Long and steady inclines are the norm here. At two miles in or so you’ll hit a view, referred to as the Owl Hike Spot. A good view of Rattlesnake Ledge and the valley is exposed in a narrow cutout of trees. A rock wall opposite serves as a makeshift bench for taking in the view. Continuing on up from here marks the end of the hardest work (barring the final push to the top). From here on out the trail is pretty friendly, mild inclines intermingled with lengthy distances of level ground.

Manning & Spring use a lot of words in their attempt to get you to the summit. We found that the trail was fairly clear, and when makeshift signs fell by the wayside, the familiar rock cairn was there to resolve any ambiguity we might have. Friendly trailblazers have long since arranged stones and other readily available material to help guide you along.

The path itself is one of the more engaging we’ve been on. It regularly transforms itself from friendly ex-logging road - spacious, flat, and graveled - to what can only be considered recently dried streambeds, the water-carved contours and exposed rock plainly visible to the passerby. It might be the time of year, but the amount of water we encountered along the way was remarkable. A stream or three is fairly common, but on the way to the top of Mt. Washington, the trail itself hugged fledgling ponds, newly-formed streams, and carried us over fast-moving rivulets.

We debated which peak the meandering trail was taking us to for the majority of the hike. Both of our guesses were wrong, and we found ourselves close to the summit almost before we realized it. At one point you’ll look up to see the top of the metal utility tower hovering around some trees above. This is your destination, though the trail will usher you under and past to approach it from the other side. Shortly thereafter you’ll break past the trees and on into meadows to reveal a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier presiding over the Cedar River Watershed. Switching back and heading up the final leg will put you at the summit to look over I-90 and the valley below. Mt. Si is directly in front of you, with Mailbox Peak to the immediate northeast. Soak up the view and enjoy. - Nathan




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