Too much Snow so I had to go to Mount Walker

I set out this morning with the intention of hiking up to Lower Lena Lake and then snowshoeing into the Valley of The Silent Men on the Brothers trail. Things did not go as planned today. There was too much snow for me to drive my car to the trail head. I only made it 1 mile from 101 before I turned around. My car was starting to slide and I had 6-7 more miles of road before the trailhead. The road was getting worse and worse by the mile so I knew there would be more then a foot of snow on the road by the time I reached the trail.


After getting turned back by snow the way to my planned hike at lower lena lake I decided to hike the Duckabush trail. I know that the road out there is plowed all the way to the terror cabin (Interrorem Cabin). I remembered that the trail head is only a couple of miles from the cabin. Well I only made it 1/2 mile beyond the cabin before my car started losing traction and it was just too scary to go on. This was much worse then the snow I hit on the way to Lena Lake. I'm sure that the snow closer to Lena Lake would have been just as bad.

I'm a bit disappointed in my cars snow performance. Perhaps it's time for new tires.

I got so close the trail head. If I actually liked the Duckabush trail I might have parked and hiked the 1 1/2 mile to the trail head.

I knew there would be no snow to stop me from getting to Mount Walker since it is right off 101 so I decided to give Mount Walker a try. There was plenty of snow on the Mount Walker trail head but there were lots of cars there. Maybe other people had the same problems getting to the trails this morning.

People were walking up without snowshoes but I put my shoes on about half way from the top. The top was a winter wonderland with 2-3 feet of snow in the drifts and about 1.5 feet of snow on the trail. The sky was clear and I finally got to see the view up top. The only other time I walked to the top of Walker the snow was falling and there was no view. I could see Mount Baker and Mount Buckhorn and I could look down to the town of Quilcene.

I spent about an hour on the summit brewing tea and cooking lunch. I had to melt snow to cook with and my little alcohol stove is not the best for melting snow. The stove went out twice and I almost gave up on having my cuppa on the top. Next time I will bring cooking water up the from my car. Unfortunately there was some horrible loud industrial noise floating up to the summit from the town of Quilcene. The summit was not as peaceful as I had hoped it would be.

This morning my legs are sore even though my hike was only 4 miles round trip. With it's 2000 feet of elevation gain in just 2 miles this trail rates a 25 on the hike difficulty calculator.

I really like the Mount Walker trail, the woods are nice and it's a good little work out. My only complaint is that you can hear the noise from 101 everywhere on the trail and you can hear the noise of Quilcene from the summit. Mount Walker is not a wilderness. In the summer they open up the road to the top and people can drive up the 4 mile road and have a picnic at the viewpoint on the summit.

If one walks up the trail and then down the road one can do a 6 mile round trip walk. I did the road walk down once and my toes got sore. The road walk is 4 miles of the exact same grade with no ups or downs.

You'll have to forgive my usual grammar problems and typo's, I 'm too wiped out from the hike to bother fixing them.