Bare Mountain (North Fork Snoquamie) 6-9-2013

Bare Mountain (North Fork Snoquamie) 6-9-2013

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I was ahead of schedule heading down the North Fork Snoqualmie River Rd in the new 4x4, stoked on a beautiful day in the mountains when I ran over some kind of metal trash in the road and blew out a tire. Four hours later I finally arrived at the trailhead for Bare Mountain Trail #1037 in surprisingly good spirit.








The trail is in decent shape after recent maintenance, but encroaching vegetation will soon make for at least a mile of serious bushwhacking. There are a few blowdowns and some water on the trail, and one serious creek crossing over slick logs. Snow appeared sporadically around 4000' and the trail mostly disappeared beneath it just above the saddle to the Eastern sub-summit. There was one 50 foot section of steep exposed snow, which I easily bypassed with a short scramble along the ridge. Automahn needed a boost or two. Views were great sunshine began to poke through the overcast shortly after reaching the summit. I found no summit register, but plenty of weathered broken glass and rusted nails, remains from the fire lookout tower that once stood here.



















Canoe Peak and Lennox Mountain loomed nearby, taunting me as surveyed the route from above the Paradise Lakes. I'm not sure if it was the late start or the long stretch of sun-baking snowfields that lay between us, but it was an easy choice to leave these two for another day.











I chose instead to take the Bear Creek junction on the way down to explore some mining remnants that could be seen from the trail above. I found more than I expected, including rusted out mine carts, massive machine wheels.














~10 miles Round Trip

3600' elevation gain

2:45 to summit, 7 hours car to car

Images

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