Mt.Forgotten

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Quick Facts

Length: 11 miles (summit round trip); 8 miles (meadows round trip)
Elevation gain: 4,000ft (summit); 3,100ft (meadows)
Approximate driving time from Seattle: 2 hours (each way)
Traffic on the trail: to the meadows: moderate; beyond: low
Highlights: fantastic views from a lookout, meadows and Mt. Forgotten; waterfall near where the trail crosses Perry Creek; wild flowers in the meadows
Challenges: the 1.5 miles of the trail from the meadows to Mt. Forgotten are not maintained -- the trail is overgrown and progress is somewhat slow; reaching the peak requires a scramble

References

Maps: Green trails #111
Books:
Conditions: WTA trail reports
On-line references:


Trail Description

Driving Directions

Trip Reports

October 12, 2008

Looking for a good first hike in the area (at least for Tom and Ben), we unwittingly chose the only one documented here by previous CSE hikers. We departed the Allen Center just after 9:00 AM on a chilly October Sunday morning, arriving at the Perry Creek trailhead around 11:00 AM. It was sunny with a few clouds and a recent dusting of snow on the peaks above 4000 feet.

The trail does nothing but climb, starting in a hemlock forest and soon leaving the hemlocks behind and emerging into the dramatic glacially-carved Perry Creek valley. The trail follows the valley, climbing steadily for about two miles. The trail sticks to the southwest slopes of the valley and crosses several rock slide zones under imposing cliffs. Looking back down the valley, the view of a couple peaks across the Mountain Loop Highway is framed by the valley itself.

At about two miles, the trail meets Perry Creek at an impressive series of falls that tumble down from trail level. Upon crossing the creek, the trail enters the forest again and gets down to business, switchbacking mercilessly up the northeast side of the valley for almost two miles more. As the trail crests the ridge, several herd paths diverge in all directions amongst smaller trees in a sort of clearing. At the top of the clearing here is a small (considering what's to come) but impressive view north to Mt. Baker and Mt. Forgotten.

Continuing northwest, the trail soon emerges into Mt. Forgotten Meadows, a huge open meadow at about 5000 feet, complete with streams and a small pond. The views are incredible, surely worth the punishing climb. The number of peaks visible seems uncountable, but a few are quite prominent. Mt. Forgotten's summit stands immediately to the northeast. To the south are Mt. Dickerman and Twin Peaks. To the east, across the abyssal Stillaguamish River valley are distinctive Sloan Peak, Mt. Pugh, and others, with Glacier Peak looming large behind them. White Chuck, Mt. Shuksan, and Mt. Baker are visible to the north. From here it is possible to scramble another mile or so to the summit of Mt. Forgotten, but there was snow on the ground in the Meadows and the shaded parts of the peak, so we opted not to scramble. Instead we summited a little knob that rises a hundred feet or so above the meadows.

The hike back down the Perry Creek Trail was uneventful, and went much more quickly than the ascent. The drive back featured Fran's car making a solid attempt at freezing Tom to death, but we all survived, arriving back in Seattle by 5:30 or so.

August 06, 2005

  • Destination: Mt. Forgotten (not Tatoosh -- see below for explanation)
  • Participants: Karthik, Tyler, The Viking and his Victory, Danny, Craig P., Keunwoo, Alex Y., and me

Panic set in around midnight, 8 hours before we were about to set out for Tatoosh: it turned out that there was no way of coaxing Mapquest, Google maps or even paper maps into giving us a driving estimate shorter than about 3.5 hours each way and we definitely did not want to drive that much. Two alternative destinations were put on the table: Mt. Forgotten and Hidden Lake Peaks. At the 8:30am Powwow, the former was chosen and we promptly set out for the weekend's adventure.

The hike has three parts: after the first 2 miles (and 1100ft up), we arrived at the falls at Perry Creek. Spectacular if you bother to look down but easy to miss if you are on a mission. The next two miles took us another 1800ft up along pretty steep switchback. The trail ends at the meadows offering a great view of the eastern side of Mt. Forgotten as well as many other surrounding mountains. Before the meadows, however, there is a spectacular lookout point which offered us a very clear view of Mt. Baker, as well as the west side of Mt. Forgotten. Having filled our eyes and bellies, we decided to press on. The next stage was 1.5 miles along an unmaintained climbers trail to the north face of Forgotten. The trail starts by plunging down several hundred feet and then continues, narrow and overgrown, along the west side of the mountain, crossing a few scree areas. An hour or so later we arrived at the end of that trail and looked up a steep gully filled loose rocks. That's where we had to scramble up to get to the top. Seven of us did so and we found ourselves crowded on top of a rock not really the size of a needle point but not much bigger either. There we signed our names in the climber register and studied the mountain goat register that must have been added there quite recently. We were pleased to discover, that the register will one day be deposited in the University of Washington Archives, giving us a chance to show off in front of our grand children, if we ever have any.

The trip back was uneventful though it made us realize how steep the trail was to begin with. We completed the hike, which totaled 11 miles and 4000ft of vertical gain, in slightly less than 8 hours and made it back to Seattle in time to take a shower and then reconvene at Siam in Capitol Hill for some good food and drinks.

The comments at the end of the trail ranged from "my toe hurts" to something about an orgasm -- the latter coming from Karthik and therefore particularly worth noting.

For the benefit of future hikers: the hike just to the meadows (Trail #711) is in itself a worthy and challenging enterprise (8 miles round trip, 3000ft vertical gain, and fantastic views). The scramble to the top of Mt. Forgotten is safe if you roughly know what you are doing, and potentially dangerous if you do not. To get there, follow the Mountain Loop Highway from Granite Falls several miles past Silverton. Turn left on forest road 4063 and go for about a mile and park at the end of it. If you are still on the Mountain Loop Highway and you see the parking lot for Mt. Dickerman, you've gone about a mile too far.

Reported by Krzysztof

P.S. I first did this hike with (prof) Todd Millstein in 2003.