Persis Perfect Views

Stats

Mount Persis via West Ridge Trail
Elevation Gain: 2700 feet
Total Elevation: 5464 feet
Total trip: 5 hours

Overview

Well October 2008 will go down featuring a number of great weekends weather wise. And with great weather, it was time for another mountain to bite the dust. Today's victim, Mount Persis. Though Mount Persis looks quite dramatic from Route 2 it clearly a very attainable peak to go up. Though the trail up (if you call it that) is very steep in places the mountain is a very simple 2 hour hike up and back. On this day October 19. 2008 I went with Josh, Ben, Anna and summitpost's own gimpilator



We picked this peak because two people had to get back early and none of us have ever been there before. We all left Monroe at 7:00 and made the trailhead by 8:30 am. It took us some time to find the actual trail but we were off and walk fairly soon. The crux of this trip is actually the first part of the trip. This trail (or bootpath) starts off very steep. For those who have been up Snoqualmie Mountain this "trail" rank up there with Snoqualmie in steepness. That being said thanks to clearcut this trail has at least faint views almost from the get go. There were a couple of places in the trail that have fallen trees so don't be surprised to climb over a log or two. The trail after a little bit leveled out a little in some semi-switchbacks. Once we made the general part of the ridge the trail took the south side of the ridge and soon hit a couple of very pretty lakes and a very small snowfield that will probably survive the winter.



The trail from the lakes turn north and alternated between a dirt path and talus field/ semi boulder scramble. From this the lake on we were enjoying fine view of Mount Rainier and many of the I-90 corridor peaks like Si, Bandera, Snoqualmie and the Tigers. We were making good time through this section and in literally two hours we were enjoying some incredible views of Mount Rainier and the I-90 corridor peaks to the south, Index, Baring and Gunn Peaks among others to the east, many of the North Cascades including Del Campo, Vesper, Baker, Glacier and Three Fingers to the north. After spending an hour on the mountain it was time to head back down.



Heading down was not without issues because the footing on the trail was often very slippery. More than once I took some slips and almost all of us struggled on the slippery steep mud and root sections on the trail. Josh gave us the biggest scare sliding about ten feet into a branch. The branch gave him a long and scary looking lscrach but luckily the gash did not go too deep into him. That being said Ben and Adam were to apply first aid to the scratch and Josh was ok. But that fall along with some other slips on the steeper section of the "trail". Luckily though this trail and in a little under two hours we were back in the car and heading back.

Mount Persis is a great quick mountain with a lot of bang for the buck. Keep in mind that this trail is more of a bootpath than an actual trail and begins off very steep but that the views on the summit are quite amazing. Josh is ok and all of had a great time this mountain. I just can't wait for next week's mountain (aka victim)

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