Trip Stats
Miller Peak
Elevation 6400 feet
Elevation Gain 3200 feet
Time Up: 2 hours
Time on summit: 1 1/2 hours
Time Down: 1 1/2 hours
Amount of soaked gear: ZERO!! The Trip Report
The forecast for today did not look very good at all. Luckily BikeJr and I had the same idea. Based on our good experiences with Koppen Mountain, and Mount Aix, we knew that the weather over the mountains was going to be at least a little better. And the Teanaway Region is the easiest region to reach when the weather is bad. According to the radar the rain shadow was not in full effect, but by the way the weather looked on the western side, it had to be better in the Teanaway.
This weekend victim was Miller Peak, a 6400 foot summit that contains an 8 mile well-maintained trail with 3200 feet of elevation gain. Nothing special statistically, but definitely worthy of a visit considering the bad weather. We didn't want to do any heavy scrambling in rainy weather. So it is Miller Time.
We left Kirkland at 8:15 am and hit the trailhead at 10:30 am. The start was a little late but at least in the beginning it was as we expected, the weather was cloudy with high clouds but no rain. The trail up began going up gradually with a number of stream crossing. After about 2 miles the trail steepens a little and traverses the side of the mountain as well as goes up a number of switchbacks. At 4800 feet we ran into a number of dirt bikers going down. It is legal to mountain bike and dirt bike this trail so don't be surprised if you run into either here.
![Miller]()
Views begin to breakout on this trail around 5200 feet and get better the higher the trail goes. After about 3 1/4 miles the trail reaches a junction where the trail going up leads to the summit while the Bear Creek trail heads down. We choose the obvious trail upward to the summit. The trail continued up through some switchback and then finally up a dirt path to the summit zone. Though the grade here is constant and the final section is a little steeper there is absolutely no exposer on this trail and it is the true definition of a walkup.
![Miller 4]()
We made it on top of the summit around 12:30 PM and were greeted with decent views of Mt. Stuart, many of the Enchantments to the north, Malcolm to the west and Red Top to the south. Views were a little cloudy and Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams covered but considering the weather, no complaints here. We made the summit easily, we have good visibility of at least 50 peaks and we are not wet (at least yet). We stayed on the summit for any hour and a half and shot up a number of panoramas and then finally headed down when a light sprinkle came in around 2:00 pm.
On the way down it rained a little but all the rain did was cut down on the dust from the trail. We barely felt anything and none of our gear got really wet. The trail down was easy to get speed and we made it down the mountain in about an hour and a half. This trail is an easy trail to get speed on especially going down.
Upon driving into Snoqualmie Pass it was obvious this was a good choice and I hope everyone is reading this trip report for tomorrow. The Teanaway Region is a great choice for tomorrow and Miller Peak delivered. When the weather is bad, [b]IT'S MILLER TIME!! [/b]
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