Talus Loop 4.10.11

I was in Texas for the weekend for Jacki's wedding, and although I booked an unfortunately early flight, it still was not early enough for me to join in the BCC team's weekly outing - an experience climb to Lundin Peak in the Commonwealth Basin. My flight was scheduled to take off at 7:20am so that meant a wake up call of 5:15am (3:15am to the Seattle-ites and other pacific time zone residents). Luckily I was able to sleep for about 2.5 hours on the two flights (yes, I got to stop in Albequrque between Houston and Seattle), and read 127 hours when I was awake. I landed in Seattle about 11:30am and met Alicia for lunch. She was flying out when I was flying in so we talked for a while before I drove her car home - best exchange ever. I had planned a hike with Alyssa and called her to check on the weather and her enthusiasm. The forecast showed a 50% chance of rain, so assuming it was raining in North Bend, we decided to go still. It had been a while since her last hike and I was hoping to substitute a hike for the experience climb, although I knew it'd be a lot less distance and elevation - I figured something was better than nothing in trying to keep in shape with the team. I had initially thought of doing Mt Si but realized the top would be caked in compacted snow and ice, so I decided to check out some others. Alyssa and I decided on the Talus Loop trail, a loop trail off of the Mt Si trail.

I got back to my apt, changed, threw some things in my pack, and headed east to pick up Alyssa on the way to North Bend. Since I wanted the hike to help make up for the experience climb, I decided to weigh my pack down with 5 liters of water which added about 15 pounds of weight. After adding my 10 essentials and some random climbing gear, I got my day pack up to 24.5 pounds - I thought a good training weight. Alyssa and I arrived at the Mt Si trail head and donned our rain gear - the weather was not looking great. I grabbed my rain pants and shell, put my pack cover on, and we hit the trail about 2:50pm. The Talus Loop was suppose to be 3.7 miles with about 1700' in elevation gain, although my GPS shows something different. We started up the Mt Si trail at my pace (slow and steady) and soon came to the turn off for the Talus Loop trail, 0.7 miles from the trailhead. We turned and started heading up, shortly after which I remembered what I had read in the guide book - skip the first turn off and take the second fork. We talked and decided to continue up in the opposite direction of that suggested in the guidebook. I wasn't sure how well the other fork would be labeled so we figured this would be safe and it seemed more interesting. As a bonus, we only met two guys coming down the loop too so it was a little quieter.

We enjoyed following the trail, meandering through the trees and the green landscape. Green ferns and moss covered most everything, it was nice. Unfortunately the wet conditions led to some very muddy sections of the trail, but nothing too bad. I had my hiking boots on so I didn't mind sloshing through it. It was a pretty gentle grade up for the first half of the loop, and then we started climbing a little more steadily. We finally popped out onto a talus slope - I'm assuming the name sake of the trail. It was pretty cloudy but we could make out a few mountains across I-90. It was good to know that there would actually be a view from the trail on a clear day, I assumed we'd just be hiking through the trees which I'm also OK with, I generally find some trees or fungus or something to grab my attention. Really I just love being outside and hiking through the trees. Yes, summits and mountain views are breathtaking, but it's fun exploring through the trees and finding interesting things. Alyssa pulled out some kettle corn she had popped - first time I've seen that as a trail snack, but I just thought of it as her popcorn for enjoying the show nature was putting on. Before long we were dumped back on the Mt Si trail and we were headed down. After a few steps I stopped to empty my water weight - oh what joy my back and shoulders had after dumping about half of my pack weight. We sped down the trail, trying not to slip on the wet rocks and were back at the car about 2 hours after we had started. It was time to head back, change into some dry clothes, and grab some dinner. Overall not bad for a quick Sunday afternoon hike to get outside and stretch my legs after being on an airplane for 6+ hours.

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Map for this adventure

Mt Si area

Our trail up, we went counterclockwise