Mt. Herman after work

Nice after work hike.

3.5 miles +/-, 1200' gain
1 hour, 20 minutes RT

After work, I headed west on Mt. Herman road and finally found the TH, a small brown sign with 716 on it. 15' farther past this, the old metal and concrete bollard sign exists, laying on the ground. There is a small parking area, enough for 10 cars or so. I headed up the trail and followed it as it switchbacked twice up the mountain before the grunt work began. There is one fairly steep sustained section of trail, and then it begins to follow the contours a little, heading north. I pushed hard, intent on getting Raspberry Mtn after the summit of Herman. I made the summit in 32 minutes. I found a reference mark, and spent a few minutes meandering around looking for the BM, which is not shown on my maps, and then I wandered around a little looking for a register, which I didn't find either. The map shows a relatively soft north ridge heading over to Raspberry, but the terrain doesn't really match the map. The north ridge is jumbled rocks and boulders, deadfall, and at this time of year, a fair bit of rotten snow. I post holed a bit, worked my way through some deadfall, and then was about to begin the descent down the boulderfield in earnest when I decided to check the watch. 5:00p.m. I only had .37 miles to go to the summit, and I had already gone .25 miles from Mt. Herman's summit, and had descended about 150' vertically. I saw more rotten snow and deadfall ahead, saw the measly 70' of prominence on Raspberry, and decided that I wanted to keep my hike enjoyable instead of miserable. I had had a good time so far, and didn't want to ruin it, so I turned around, content to save it for a different day. I regained what I had lost on Herman, touched the top again, and went back down the trail the way I came. My only negative for the whole trail would be that it suffers a bit from poor design - no water bars or drainages, etc. to keep runoff from going down the trail, so a few spots are a little eroded. The trail faces SSW, so it is almost completely dry, and the snowy spots have dirt/rocks on them, so they are grippy and solid, not rotten. My descent took just over 20 minutes from the summit, so all you fast people could easily do this peak from the TH in less than an hour, maybe even halving my time, if you just do Mt. Herman.