Page Type Page Type: Trip Report
Location Lat/Lon: 47.51364°N / 121.7244°W
Date Date Climbed/Hiked: Dec 8, 2012
Seasons Season: Winter

Blowdown Mountain

We took the Mt. Si trail up to just below the haystack, which was covered in snow as I'd assumed, so we skipped it. From there it was on to our real destination. The seldom spoken of Blowdown Mountain.

We took the trail heading east along the ridge to connect with the Mt. Teneriffe Road-Trail. We took the Mt. Teneriffe road until it passes around the base of the southeast ridge of Blowdown Mountain. At this point we took what was left of an old road up toward the summit.

The road has completely eroded away making it little more than a nice path to follow between the trees. Snowshoes would have been very helpful at this point. The road is nowhere near level in any place so the depth of the snow got really unpredictable. As soon as we stepped off the Mt. Teneriffe road onto the old road the snow was up to the knee. You never knew when you were going in up to your thigh, but you could count on it at least once every few steps. It was very slow going for the last half mile as we made our way to the top of the old road. From there it was a very short bushwack to the true summit, which had just a sliver of a view to the north.

The real views on this peak are just to the south and the east of the summit, as you make your way up the old road. It provides very unique angles of the much more popular Si and Teneriffe, as well as a long view to the south. I thoroughly enjoyed looking down on a snow covered haystack with rattlesnake ridge as the backdrop.

We wanted to continue on to Crater lake Mountain to the northwest, but we were running out of daylight, and as it was we were going to be heading down from Mt. Si in the dark. We plowed back down the old road what felt like 5 times quicker than we came up and traced our route back to the car. The unique vantage points of Si and Teneriffe made it worth the trip for me, but when I come back it's going to be with snowshoes.

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