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Naches Peak Loop/Tipsoo Lake

posted September 6th, 2012 in Trip reports

I’d been planning on waiting until I had some pictures ready to go up with this one, since it was very much a photography hike, but apparently my hard drive is like purgatory for pictures. The last weekend of August I made my way up to Tipsoo Lake and the Naches Peak loop trail, which is “sort of” in Mount Rainier National Park. I think the trailhead technically is in the park, but not in a section where they actually enforce an entry fee. Parts of the hike then cross the Snoqualmie National Forest and maybe one other National Forest area.

The trail goes along part of the Pacific Crest Trail, so now I can say I’ve “started” two of the three trails on the Triple Crown of Hiking, and two of the four long trails that I think I would like to do. (I’ve hiked bits and pieces of the Appalachian Trail, of course, in VA; the other two are the Continental Divide Trail, which I think I have missed both times I’ve been in its general vicinity, and the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada range.) I actually could’ve gotten in more of the PCT while I was out that day, but it would’ve added three miles to the hike. On its own, that wouldn’t have been bad, but it would have started off going downhill toward Dewey Lake, and I had no idea how steep it was. As a result, I wasn’t sure how long it would take, and I thought I might start to run short on daylight if it took too long.

In short: despite the huge number of people and accompanying nightmarish parking situation, this is definitely a hike worth doing. After all, there must be a reason everyone else was there, right? It’s a fairly easy stroll, as the WTA guide notes, without any long steep sections. The first half heads east and then south around Naches Peak at ~6400 ft, with a couple short gains but mostly rolling up and downhill along the rocks. Then you turn west to return to the parking lot and you basically spend your time walking through meadows full of wildflowers and staring at Mount Rainier.

I think I heard a ranger say there would be flowers for another week or two and then it would quickly transition to fall colors, so I might have to head up again soon.