Mt. Si, Via the Old Trail

This trail was a last minute decision.  We initally wanted to do Stegosaurus Butte and then Little Si on the way back into town, but when we went to the first hike, the road was closed at the Mailbox Trailhead.  Tempted to do Mailbox, we decided no way without trekking poles at least for the kids.  So we had a choice:  Do only Little Si, or make the most of the day and do Mt. Si.  We chose Mt. Si, and obtaining the summit via the Old Trail, because the newer one yielded an 8-mile hike.  From the brothers' -- Hiking with my Brother -- (using their coordinates) they placed the Old Trail at 5.5 miles.  Seemed like a no brainer; we'll take the Old Trail.  To top this off, we understood that hiking Mt. Si on a Sunday would be very crowded, so then the much, much less used old trail seemed even more enticing.

To get there, it is exit 31 off of I-90, driving past the outlet mall and turning right on North Bend Way.  A couple of miles down you will turn left on Mt. Si Road and park at the Little Si parking lot.  It might be the 2nd or 3rd lot down this road.  You will need a Discovery Pass.  We try to utilize free whenever we can, but this street has no parking signs all along the street.  You cannot get past paying for parking, unless you are willing to walk half a mile (when the tow signs fade) past the official parking, which is what we did.  

You'd start at the entrance toward the Little Si trailhead.  For the shorter trip (5.5 miles), you'll hike past the first entrance into the Boulder Gardens Loop, and to the 2nd entrance of it -- where you will also see the official trailhead for Little Si.  At this junction, you will turn right to enter Boulder Gardens Loop from its back end.  You'll go perhaps half a mile into this before you reach the official trailhead for the Old Trail.  Once you reach the mossy boulder valley, you'll quickly see the junction where the option is turning right to continue the loop or go left into the Old Trail.  From here on out, when you see a junction, the rule of thumb is go left.

Off the parking lot, shortly into the trail

The mossy boulder valley right before the Old Trail junction

It gets extremely steep from here on out.  A good perspective would be to determine what the hike has been so far up until this point to see if you want to attempt it, or go back around while you have energy to do the newer trail instead.  That first mile or so that led us to that point is a cake-walk, a very easy (and beautiful!) nature walk, compared to the rest of it.  If it was difficult, it might not be the trail for your family.  In comparison, the reports from other hikers at the top was that the newer trail's elevation was very steady and not difficult at all.  You obtain a 3500 elevation gain -- you just have to decide if you want to do it in 2.75 miles or 4 miles.

The grade on the Old Trail

It is so steep that if it were any steeper or any wetter, it would require poles.  The reports were right -- there weren't any crowds here.  We saw maybe a total of 5 hikers roundtrip on this trail -- all of which, not ill-experienced, saying they were beat.  Amira, Brant, and I are neither ill-experienced; Amira was hiking the Alps at 9 years old.  However, Bam was my concern.  We didn't complete it without having to push him and encourage him with chocolate chips, and Amira (going ahead of us) made little flower trails for him, which excited him to keep his mind on finding the flowers rather than thinking of the labor.  

As you come to the new trail junction, remember to go left.  At the second junction you will merge with it and be just a bend away from the first part of exposure.  Here, the kids took a break, Bam fed the birds (that eat right out of your hand!), and I even offered them to stay here while we made it up to the haystack.  I've read most will be sufficed to come this far.  Bam got a burst of energy and decided to do some of the scrambling up to the haystack.  However, he did not do the haystack.  We left the kids just past the first rocky terrain where they got a breather and Brant, baby, and I went to the haystack.

I was late on the snap.  You can see the bird flying away from his goods right out of Bam's hand.

I see many settled here, but you can obtain more of the ridge and even absolute summit by continuing.

Since the conditions were slick from snow earlier in the week, the baby and I stayed at the base of the haystack and Brant climbed it to the absolute summit.  He forgot his phone, so no picture exists for his trip up there outside of the memory for him.  A couple on the way down told us it was 15-20 minutes on a rock climb one way.  The wall is pretty darn near verticle, but has excellent foot holds.  Brant did it roundtrip in 15 minutes -- motivation was that it was cold.  Boy, was it cold.

Haystack.  You can see Brant's red shirt.

On the way down, my knees were not happy.  At one point of time it almost gave out when I stepped down.  Anything is attainable with time and equipment, but to give perspective... it took us 5 hours 45 minutes roundtrip, much longer than the brothers' time of 3:45.  This is why I write stuff like this, for the families to get a true perspective on hiking as a family unit.  By far, the most difficult.  Not the most dangerous, but the most difficult we've done as a family.  Later, I read some use this trail as a trainer (for others like Mailbox and parts of Rainier).  At this point, perhaps Mailbox is reachable for my kids.  Perhaps.