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| Photo Credit: Lidia M. |
Silver Star Summit - great capture of Mt. Hood in the distance,
the moon, and of course my awesome new socks! ;)
Lidia and I went on an evening hike up Silver Star Mountain via the Grouse Vista Trail after work today. We hit the trial at 6:30 p.m. and were racing against the time. We wanted to be at the summit to watch the sun go down but knew there were a couple of open viewpoints that we could stop at and enjoy the sunset if we weren't going to make it all the way. Amazingly it took us less than two hours to reach the summit! I believe this was our fastest hike up Silver Star to date! Silver Star is rocky and steep, usually requiring us to take several breaks on the way up. Tonight it was all mind over matter - we pushed hard (but still too time to take pictures!). While the hike up was quite warm, the weather at the summit was completely opposite. We turned the last corner on the trail reaching the wide open 360-viewpoint and wow, unexpectedly it was really windy and COLD! It just kept getting colder too as the sun went down but the view was totally worth the teeth chattering! Amazing!! Sunset hikes are awesome!
We spent approximately 40 minutes at the summit taking pictures and standing there in the glow of the evening sun. It was stunning and I was so happy we had gone the entire distance. When we finally left the summit we knew it was going to be dark soon so we moved as quickly as possible while we still had light. Our last hour was spent hiking in the dark. The moon was bright and beautiful in the open areas but most of the time we were buried deep within the forest so headlamps were a must. We stayed together, carried on a conversation and made it down quickly and without incident. From start to finish it took us 4 hours and 3 minutes, which included the 40 minutes at the top. We obviously were on a mission going up AND going down - 6.74 miles; 2,124 feet of elevation gain.
We had such a great time! I love my life!
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| Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier in the distance |
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| Mt. Hood |
2019 Hike 25/52
6.74 miles
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